Malcolm X: The FBI File [Mass Market Paperback]

Clayborne Carson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 1995

"Compelling...A stunning composite of the black leader drawn from the declassified FBI documents spanning over a decade of undercover surveillance."

-- Atlantic News Service

The FBI opened its file on Malcolm X shortly after his release from a Boston prison in March 1953. Twelve years later -- on February 21, 1965 -- he was assassinated in a hail of bullets. Yet his fascinating story survived his violent death -- and a vital part of that story is found here in Malcolm X: The FBI File.

This extraordinary work distills the voluminous file kept on the most controversial and charismatic civil rights leader, which ran to more than thirty-six hundred pages. Accompanied by the incisive commentaries of Clayborne Carson, a leading scholar of the American Civil Rights movement, this is a fascinating biographical and historical document, one that sheds light on both Malcolm X and the government compelled to monitor him.

"These pages allow us to understand better a remarkable orator who, among all his other gifts, was able to listen and grow."

-- The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

From March, 1953 forward, shortly after he was released from a Boston prison, the FBI watched every move Malcolm X made. Their files on him totalled more than 3,600 pages, covering every facet of his life.

Viewing the file as a source of information about the ideological development and political significance of Malcolm X, historian Clayborne Carson examines Malcolm's relationship to other African-American leaders and institutions in order to define more clearly Malcolm's place in modern African-American history.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of reading Malcolm X: The FBI File is discovering what the G-men decided was worth noting about Malcolm Little, aka Malcolm X. They read his private letters, monitored his phone calls, taped his interviews, and shadowed him wherever he went, except to the Audubon Ballroom on the day of his death.

With its sobering, close scutiny of the FBI and the national policing strategies of the 1950s and 1960s and its look at such issues as the relationship between J. Edgar Hoover and black civil rights leaders, Malcolm X: The FBI Files is one-of-a-kind: never before has there been so much material on the assassination of Malcolm X assembled in one place.

From the Inside Flap

"Compelling...A stunning composite of the black leader drawn from the declassified FBI documents spanning over a decade of undercover surveillance."

-- Atlantic News Service

The FBI opened its file on Malcolm X shortly after his release from a Boston prison in March 1953. Twelve years later -- on February 21, 1965 -- he was assassinated in a hail of bullets. Yet his fascinating story survived his violent death -- and a vital part of that story is found here in Malcolm X: The FBI File.

This extraordinary work distills the voluminous file kept on the most controversial and charismatic civil rights leader, which ran to more than thirty-six hundred pages. Accompanied by the incisive commentaries of Clayborne Carson, a leading scholar of the American Civil Rights movement, this is a fascinating biographical and historical document, one that sheds light on both Malcolm X and the government compelled to monitor him.

"These pages allow us to understand better a remarkable orator who, among all his other gifts, was able to listen and grow."

-- The New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 434 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 18, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345400097
• ISBN-13: 978-0345400093
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,991,215 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful book, the product of much research exposing the FBI, July 4, 2002

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Malcolm X: The FBI File (Paperback)

Carson is a well-known Black scholar whose most important work has been organizing and opublishing from the Martin Luther King Papers. This book was an effort on his part to expose how the FBI followed Malcolm X from the time he wrote to a radical youth group for information, long before Malcolm X joined the Muslims until his death, a death Malcolm more and more expected would come from the FBI/CIA. Along the way the FBI has preserved speeches and letters and views of Malcolm as they evolved throughout his life. Anyone who treats Malcolm X as some sort of prefabricated god, and not a man whose views developed over time, over experience, and particularly after his exposure to the struggles of the civil rights movement, and the anti-imperialist struggles ongoing in Cuba, Africa, and Vietnam at the time, is in for a rude shock as this book shows how his ideas changed and grew.
I recommend Pathfinder Press's series of books by Malcolm X. Malcolm selected Pathfinder to publish his speeches before he died. The first book Malcolm X speaks was selected while Malcolm was living, though published after he was murdered. Every book has been published in cooperation and with royalties to Malcolm's family. Pathfinder has gone as far as the jungles of Guyana to find every speech or interview available with Malcolm particularly in the last years of his life.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The book was informative...., August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Malcolm X: The FBI File (Mass Market Paperback)

The book was informative however the foward by Spike Lee was out of place. It breaks my heart that so many people profit from the life and death of Malcolm X other than his family. Although this is a good book do your self and Malcolm justice by getting this book from your public library!

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Library of Sonya Armfield, July 8, 2007

By 

Sonya Armfield "Sonya Armfield" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Malcolm X: The FBI File (Paperback)

This book was interesting because it offers a different perspective of Malcolm X. Its good to read this book with the autobiography of Malcolm X.

Sonya Armfield