Malcolm X

Since I do not have a TV, I got a copy of The Times on my morning walk to see who won Oscars. That Denzel Washington was not named best actor was an academy decision. But not mentioning "Malcolm X" in The Times must have been a Times decision. If not for a large photo of Washington and his wife, Pauletta Pearson, showing them as among the best dressed , one might not have known he was present at all. At least he was not shown eating watermelon. The Times carefully noted that the awards ceremony, despite its "Year of the Woman" theme, largely treated women in the usual way. But The Times took part in the usual treatment of a black actor and ignored his director, Spike Lee, and their ambitious, vivid film.

Manning Marable's “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” was one of the standout books of 2011. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle and National Book Award finalist, it was the first full biography of its subject, a counterpoint to “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and an astonishing exercise in context; Marable sought to evoke Malcolm not as symbol but as human being. The death of the author , a professor at Columbia and an influential scholar of African American history, just days before the book's publication makes for a poignant irony.

A historic marker commemorating slain black nationalist leader Malcolm X has been unveiled at the site of his original family home. The site is a clearing surrounded by seven acres of woodland that was formerly a neighborhood where Malcolm X grew up, Rowena Moore, president of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, said at the unveiling ceremonies Tuesday. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925.

From battlefields to bridges, historic sites across the country are facing demolition, neglect and encroaching developments. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has added 11 more places to the list of the country's most endangered, including a Revolutionary War battlefield, Malcolm X's home in Boston and the Philadelphia gym where Joe Frazier once trained. The trust is a Washington-based nonprofit that seeks to preserve sites of historic significance. Every year, the group identifies a list of buildings and places that it considers most endangered.

Documents, photos and memorabilia from the life of Malcolm X -- his eighth-grade memo book, his application for a Nation of Islam name, the shells from the shotgun that killed him -- went on display here this week in observance of what would have been his 80th birthday.

San Francisco State University's president on Tuesday ordered the removal of a mural honoring Malcolm X that depicts Stars of David with skulls and crossbones, dollar signs and the phrase "African Blood." President Robert Corrigan said his strong convictions about the need to combat anti-Semitism led him to demand the removal of the artwork.

Malcolm X's widow said in a television interview that she believes Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was involved in her husband's assassination. Betty Shabazz previously has criticized Farrakhan but never directly accused him of complicity in the 1965 assassination. In a taped interview for broadcast Sunday on WNBC-TV's "News Forum," Shabazz was asked if she believes that Farrakhan "had anything to do with the death of your husband." "Of course, yes," she replied. "Nobody kept it a secret.

The image of Malcolm X, one of the most controversial African American leaders of the 1960s, will join the official ranks of Americana by way of a U.S. postage stamp early next year. He becomes the 22nd person honored in the Postal Service's Black Heritage series. An Associated Press photograph of Malcolm X answering a question at a 1964 news conference in New York will be featured on the 33-cent stamp. It also contains the name he used at the end of his life, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

The widow of Malcolm X is suing the brother of the late Alex Haley for at least half of the money the author's estate made on the sale of the original manuscript of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." Haley, author of "Roots," collaborated with the civil rights activist on the autobiography in the early 1960s. It was published in 1964. The book was the basis for the screenplay of the movie "Malcolm X," which opened last week. The lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of Betty Shabazz of Elmsford, N.Y.

The largest known collection of personal writings by the slain black militant leader Malcolm X, which was almost sold at auction last year, will be housed at a research center for black culture here. Two of Malcolm X's six daughters announced an agreement Tuesday to place the collection -- which includes Malcolm X's personal Koran -- at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The agreement ends a legal battle to stop a sale of the collection.

Barney Rosset, the renegade founder of Grove Press who fought groundbreaking legal battles against censorship and introduced American readers to such provocative writers as Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet, died Tuesday in New York City. He was 89. His daughter, Tansey Rosset, said he died after undergoing surgery to replace a heart valve. In 1951 Rosset bought tiny Grove Press, named after the Greenwich Village street where it was located, and turned it into one of the most influential publishing companies of its time.

Malcolm X A Life of Reinvention Manning Marable Viking: 594 pp., $30 Malcolm X never died. While his contemporary Martin Luther King Jr. lives on in the noble but fixed ideal of a racially unified and enlightened America, Malcolm lives on in the fluid black discontent with the ongoing lack of justice. Forty-six years after his assassination, it is Malcolm who looks like the prophet. Though the black middle class has made spectacular gains, the struggles of the black urban working- and underclass from which Malcolm came and that still describe much of black America are substantially what they were in the '60s.

Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming biography of Malcolm X could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, has died only days before the book described as his life's work was to be published. He was 60. Marable died Friday of complications of pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, said his wife, Leith Mullings. She said Marable had suffered for 24 years from sarcoidosis, a disease characterized by inflammation in the lungs or other tissue, and had undergone a double lung transplant in July.

Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, has died. He was 89. Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for New York Gov. David Paterson, confirmed that Sutton died Saturday. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment when reached by phone at her New York City home. Sutton founded his Harlem law firm in 1953 and represented Malcolm X and his family for decades.

Benjamin Karim, a Muslim minister and author who was a top assistant to black nationalist icon Malcolm X, died Tuesday after a fall in Richmond, Va. He was 73. Karim, a native of Suffolk, Va., was working for a recording company in New York City in 1957 when he first heard Malcolm X speak. The black nationalist spoke so compellingly about the history of slavery that Karim -- whose name was then Benjamin Goodman -- joined the Nation of Islam.

Documents, photos and memorabilia from the life of Malcolm X -- his eighth-grade memo book, his application for a Nation of Islam name, the shells from the shotgun that killed him -- went on display here this week in observance of what would have been his 80th birthday.

A former court clerk was fined $5,000 Tuesday and ordered to perform 150 hours of community service for stealing the blood-stained, bullet-riddled date book Malcolm X had in his breast pocket when he was assassinated in 1965. Douglas Henderson, 42, was also placed on probation for five years. Henderson, who had worked as a court clerk for 15 years, pleaded guilty to grand larceny.

A new U.S. Postal Service stamp featuring Malcolm X made its West Coast debut Wednesday. The stamp, unveiled at the Fletcher Bowron Plaza in downtown, is the 22nd in the Postal Service's black heritage series, said Larry Dozier, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service. More than 100 million adhesive 33-cent stamps were printed. The unveiling ceremony featured dancers and gospel hymns sung by the Dublin Avenue Elementary School choir.

As Malcolm X's daughter watched from the audience, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to name an intersection in South Los Angeles after the slain civil rights leader. Malcolm X Way will be at Central Avenue and Martin Luther King. Jr. Boulevard near the Bilal Islamic Center. A convert to Islam, Malcolm X promoted black separatism as a minister for the Nation of Islam.

The largest known collection of personal writings by the slain black militant leader Malcolm X, which was almost sold at auction last year, will be housed at a research center for black culture in New York. Two of Malcolm X's six daughters announced that the collection, which includes Malcolm X's personal Koran, will be placed at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The family and estate retains all ownership rights.