Malcolm X: The FBI File

Substantial extracts from the 3,600 page, 19 section declassified FBI file as edited into a narrative of the brief but dynamic career of the charismatic African-American activist. The materials include personal correspondence, newspaper articles, radio and television interviews, sermons and speeches delivered in the cause of black nationalism. With a section-by-section commentary by Clayborne Carson and an introduction by Spike Lee. Acidic paper. Paper edition (758-5), $12.95. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

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.