**WINNER OF PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY** **WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD (Nonfiction)**
Shortlisted for the HWA Non-Fiction Crown AwardFinalist LA Times Book Prize A landmark
biography of one of the twentieth century's most compelling figures rewriting much of the
known narrative. Les Payne the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist
embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had
actually known Malcolm X - including siblings classmates friends cellmates FBI moles and
cops and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would
become hundreds of hours of interviews into a portrait that would separate fact from fiction.
The result is this magisterial work that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist
whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his followers stir with purpose
to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting his life not only within the political struggles
of his day but also against the larger backdrop of American history this remarkable
masterpiece traces his path from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary. An
author who saw Malcolm X speak and could not stand the phrase 'we may never know' Payne writes
cinematically from start to finish and delivers extraordinary revelations - from a hair-raising
scene of Malcolm's clandestine meeting with the KKK to a minute-by-minute account of his
murder in Harlem in 1965 in which he makes the case for the complicity of the American
government. Introduced by Payne's daughter and primary researcher Tamara Payne who following
her father's death heroically completed the biography The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating
and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom
struggle and the story of the twentieth century.
