ABSTRACT
This book argues that Black Nationalism was an important and thriving alternative to Black bourgeois protest, which held out as its goal Black integration into white society. Of course, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley, is the urtext of contemporary Black Nationalism. In the face of the grim recurrence of a racism many believed had been greatly diminished, the renewed popularity of Malcolm X both his image and his ideology-have taken on new importance. Bruce Perry says Malcolm's "war against the white power structure evolved from the same inner needs that had spawned earlier rebellions against his teachers, the law, established religion, and other symbols of authority". Malcolm X is now part of the American imagination that once relegated him to its margins, he has become, in death, the source of our constant reinventions of his life. The mature Malcolm is equally tragic, a man of looming greatness whose self-destructing personality "contributed to his premature death".
