The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America

by Mark Whitaker

A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025

Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.

Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he was still seen as a dangerous outsider. White America found him alienating, mainstream African Americans found him divisive, and even his admirers found him bravely radical. Although Ossie Davis famously eulogized Malcolm X as “our own Black shining prince,” he never received the mainstream acceptance toward which he seemed to be striving in his final year. It is more in death than his life that Malcolm’s influence has blossomed and come to leave a deep imprint on the cultural landscape of America.

With impeccable research and original reporting, Mark Whitaker tells the story of Malcolm X’s far-reaching posthumous legacy. It stretches from founders of the Black Power Movement such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to hip-hop pioneers such as Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Leaders of the Black Arts and Free Jazz movements from Amiri Baraka to Maya Angelou, August Wilson, and John Coltrane credited their political awakening to Malcolm, as did some of the most influential athletes of our time, from Muhammad Ali to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and beyond. Spike’s movie biopic and the Black Lives Matter movement reintroduced Malcolm to subsequent generations. Across the political spectrum, he has been cited as a formative influence by both Barack Obama—who venerated Malcolm’s “unadorned insistence on respect”—and Clarence Thomas, who was drawn to Malcolm’s messages of self-improvement and economic self-help.

In compelling new detail, Whitaker also retraces the long road to exoneration for two men wrongfully convicted of Malcolm’s murder, making The Afterlife of Malcolm X essential reading for anyone interested in true crime, American politics, culture, and history.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, Audiobook, Race, African American

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 13, 2025

About the author

Mark Whitaker is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, My Long Trip Home. The former managing editor of CNN Worldwide, he was previously the Washington bureau chief for NBC News and a reporter and editor at Newsweek, where he rose to become the first African-American leader of a national newsweekly.

Reviews

[Kadin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many people mentioned in this book, I became more than a little fascinated with Malcolm X after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and really wanted to know more. This is a great, thoroughly researched, well-written book about the cultural and societal influence that Malcolm X has had, both during his life and after his assassination. Sixty years after his death you can still see his message in much of the music and movies we enjoy and the causes we endorse.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that books on Malcolm X keep coming is a true testament to his enduring legacy and the profound impact of his perspective on America, Black people and global politics. And so Mark Whitaker sets out to explore this legacy and explain Malcolm’s impact after his untimely assassination. If you have read extensively about Malcolm X, there is not much new here, although there are some minor details, that earlier chroniclers of Malcolm X may have missed. Understand, this is not a biography of Malcolm X, but an examination of the large footprint Malcolm left behind. As early as 3-5 years after his death, Malcolm X began to be celebrated and commemorated. Mr. Whitaker does an excellent job of taking us through the decades to elucidate Malcolm’s aftermath or afterlife if you will. He is meticulous in his research, but I believe he could have significantly reduced the length of this text by 75-100 pages. There are instances where he delves into minutiae by providing mini biographies of individuals who were influenced by Malcolm. Is it necessary to include pages that detail the back history of person A or B, their encounters with Malcolm’s messages, and their enthusiastic praise for him?

These digressions were somewhat annoying, especially when the individuals involved are well-known. Readers who are unfamiliar with these individuals can easily find information online. Notwithstanding these detours, this is still a book to add to your bookshelf. I recommend it enthusiastically.

[Myles Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw a new book on Malcolm X written by Mark Whitker, I immediately purchased! Mark Whitaker is a gifted writer with the ability to comb through history to explain contemporary culture, especially as it relates to black culture.

Few historical figures have as well of a documented personal and philosophical evolution quite like Malcolm X. This was the first book that I've come across that details the societal evolution around Malcolm's legacy. As a child born in the 90s, it was commonplace to see Malcolm's image next to other highly regarded civil rights figures like MLK and even Barack Obama, but Mark reminds readers that this recognition was far from reality during his life and in the immediate years after his assassination.

Malcolm's influence is felt everywhere, from progressive activists fighting racial injustice to conservative judges and writers. In today's partisan politics, there is a strong urge to squeeze historical figures into our modern political boxes. Perhaps that's the true gift of Malcolm X. He wasn't a man pushing for team Red or Blue, but instead a man who deeply loved and cared for the black community and recognized that the progress we wished to see would need to come from within our community.

[Claudyne Vielot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for permission to read this work prior to its release. This comprehensive exploration of Malcolm X’s legacy is as vital as it is timely. From the posthumous release of his autobiography to his influence on music, film, and politics, Malcolm X left a void that could not be filled and an impression that cannot be erased.

[Mohsin Mirza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malcolm X’s impact is felt everywhere but is also tougher to nail down. This book does a great job of explaining his far ranging cultural reach and impact after his death including on music (especially Hip Hop and Jazz), athletes, and American politics/civil rights movements. That story is told in parallel to the actual events that shaped his legacy including how the autobiography came to be published, the assassination trial (and two wrongful convictions it resulted in), the major books and their impact, and the film (fascinating story of how it came about and the history Spike Lee uncovered along the way).

It’s well written and an easy read.

I had a few points of critique. Inevitably there are aspects in a book like this that are under discussed.
1. This book doesn’t discuss Malcolm’s profound impact on Islam in America where in many communities he is a quasi-patron saint.
2. The chapter on Black Power is very interesting but probably too short to adequately address the movements impact and focuses too much on the violence that destroyed it.
3. I would be curious to learn more about if there was a policy or political legacy to the activist groups that sought to take up his mantle. There’s so many examples of people whose thinking was shaped by Malcolm — and organizations who have sought to carry out his work - what impact have they had?

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is still essential reading, and this book is a fitting read for after it. I think what I enjoyed most is that even though it’s defined by Malcolm’s absences, you still get great glimpses and anecdotes into the what he was like and why he’s had such an enduring legacy.

[Billqeece · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Malcolm was on time. We were just late.”

I didn’t want this book to end as it comforted me. Each chapter, I had to savor my time of learning new things about Malcolm X. His friendship with Muhammad Ali. The fallout of the jealous Elijah Muhammad including that rat Farrakhan. Why his death was such a mystery until this day.

His lessons, teachings, beliefs are so impactful that everyone can still take today. Right now. So interesting how in Malcolm’s time, they called him a terrorist. Sounds familiar?

Favorite part of the book was how the author weaved throughout that people always called him handsome.

[Umar Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will review this book on my Substack. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as I've long noticed that Malcolm is appropriated by conservatives, liberals, leftists, fundamentalist Muslims, Black Nationalists, Pan Africanists, and many more. People see in Malcolm what they want to see. Whittaker does a good job at illustrating the influence of Malcolm in the late 60s and the 1970s and leading up to hip-hop, Tupac, and the Spike Lee biopic. I also learned about the James Baldwin Malcolm film project and other things I was previously unaware of.

A central point of the book is that Malcolm is an influential figure, and narrators of his story have shaped his story to fit their personal politics. Alex Haley, using the Hajj story to hint Malcolm was moving towards a liberal and integrationist approach. Manning Marable writing in the Obama Era when talk of a post-racial America was in the air (remember that?).

Muslim readers may be disappointed. Obviously, there is discussion of the Nation of Islam as it relates to the life and death of Malcolm and Imam W.D. Mohammed gets a free brief mentions, but until the final chapters, when Abdur-Rahman Muhammad and the Who Killed Malcolm X documentary series are discussed, there is basically no analysis of Malcom's influence on Muslims and how his life has been interpreted (and appropriated) through a religious lense. The focus is on the broader Black American culture.

[Hassan Rasheed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Journalist attempting to write as an historian. This rarely works, and it doesn’t in this book. The author does provide some interesting anecdotes about Malcolm, but otherwise this book isn’t very insightful.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given I know a lot about X, I thought this was excellent. However, it’s definitely not entry level, start with something less detailed and nuanced if you’re new to this topic. 4.5 stars.

[Robert Sheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several years ago, I read Les Payne’s The Dead Are Arising, which gave me my first truly in-depth understanding of Malcolm X’s life and assassination. Growing up in the 1960s, political assassination was a grim fact of public life, but Payne’s biography brought a clarity and intimacy that stayed with me. Coming to Mark Whitaker’s The Afterlife of Malcolm X, I found myself reading not a biography, but a study of what happens after a life ends—and how influence can sometimes grow larger in death than it ever was in life.

Whitaker traces Malcolm X’s legacy across six decades of American culture and politics, from Black Power movements and the Black Arts era to hip-hop, athletics, and contemporary political thought. He also carefully documents the long, overdue legal effort to overturn the wrongful convictions of two men accused of Malcolm’s murder, grounding the book in both cultural history and moral reckoning.

I still prefer Payne’s biography for understanding Malcolm the man. But Whitaker’s examination of Malcolm’s afterlife—how his ideas were contested, repurposed, and revived—adds an important dimension. Read together, the two books offer a fuller picture of why Malcolm X remains such a powerful, unsettled presence in American history.

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this audiobook! I knew next to nothing about Malcolm X going in, and I'm sure that some of the things I learned are such common knowledge that it's baffling how I'm only just now finding out about them. But everyone has to start somewhere, and this book is a great place to do so. It traces Malcolm X's legacy by covering a wide and engaging variety of topics, from Muhammad Ali and the world of boxing to the evolution of hip hop and modern musicians such as Megan Thee Stallion.

I started this audiobook somewhat daunted by its length but found myself constantly surprised by how quickly the chapters were going and how much I had already listened to. I could have listened to hours more, and I'm looking forward to reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" with the solid foundation this book has given me.

[Yazeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Malcolm X book after the autobiography. Well-researched and organized. Malcolm X’s legacy runs deeeeeeeep.

[Rick Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazingly well researched book. Seeing how Malcolm X has been reinvented over time was fascinating as were the conspiracies and errors that surrounded his Assassination

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid choice for anyone who wants to learn more about Malcolm X and his enduring influence- over 60 years after his death.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was young when Malcolm X was assassinated but I remember the photos from Life magazine. I read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" when I was a teenager, but I didn't keep up with the trial and its aftermath. But, his enduring legacy interests me and Mark Whitaker has done a thorough and effective job of laying out Malcolm X's impact. I was especially interested in the chapter "Hero to the Right and Left" and all of Part V, which about the exoneration of two of the people convicted of his murder.

[Miroku Nemeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars is generous. I'll probably write a full review later. But yeah, give me 20 pages interspersed throughout the book on Clarence Thomas and his claim that he was following Malcolm X because THAT'S legit. Supreme Court Justice Uncle Ruckus sure merits attention. And the Malcolm X Opera where the backers thought that Malcolm would have agreed to peace with Israel. During an ongoing genocide. Read Malcolm's "Zionist Logic," or watch some of his videos on Zionist white supremacist colonization of Palestine. Malcolm was very clear and uncompromising about this issue.

I didn't give it a one star rating because I've been teaching Malcolm 30 years, and it was interesting to look at all the ways in which his story has been told or affected many aspects of culture (apparently the Muslim world or Muslims in America somehow don't matter though, which is some real clown stuff, man), but there were so many trash takes by the end of it I was really tempted to do so.

There's a reason voices like Whitaker's rise to his position as propagandist...."journalist." Many agendas were served here, but not any Malcolm or those who love him would agree with.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A century after his birth and half a century after his death, Malcolm X still speaks to our American condition and to our constant debate about race and belonging. Indeed, it can be argued that he made more of an impact in his afterlife, with his posthumous memoir helping to expose even more people to his story and his message than he managed during the thirty-nine years he had on this planet. And alongside that posthumous legacy, there is the question, still unresolved, of who made the call for his bloody end in February of 1965.

"The Afterlife of Malcolm X," by Mark Whitaker, is not a biography in the traditional sense. It's more of a cultural reckoning with Malcolm's meaning in the wake of his death, when he went from a figure feared by the white majority to an icon beloved by Black communities en masse. Whitaker tells two intersecting stories, really, about the cultural evaluation of Malcolm X and the long investigation into who exactly participated in his murder as well as who may have ordered it. Working these strands into a multi-decade narrative is a challenge, but Whitaker is up to it.

The cultural impact of Malcolm X began long before his death, when he rose to prominence as the spokesman for Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam in the late Fifties. Preaching what many viewed as a separatist, anti-integrationist platform, Malcolm was held in direct contrast to Martin Luther King, Jr. The two men were viewed as rivals, though other books I've read recently show that they had more in common than commentators at the time thought. In time, Malcolm fell out with Muhammad over revelations of the latter's failure to live up to his own moral codes, and at the time of his death had begun to make his own way. He was hard at work on the book that would define him, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965.

Whitaker shows how, over the decades, Malcolm's legacy was defined by forces both of the right and the left, and how his cultural impact was influenced by factors beyond his family's control (such as the shaping of his narrative by co-author Alex Haley, the cinematic portrait of him in Spike Lee's masterpiece biopic, and multiple biographies by various authors, two of whom were released posthumously by their authors like Malcolm's memoir was). I've read the two books in question, by Manning Marable and Les Payne, as well as the Autobiography, of course. I might say that I'm the one guy in my social or family circle who knows a lot about Malcolm, having asked my mom to buy me a copy of the Autobiography when the film came out (though it took me a few decades to finish it). So this synthesis of cultural history and detailed investigation into the three men who went on trial for Malcolm's murder, was right up my alley.

The story of the murder investigation is the meat of the book, and as such is compelling in its own, true-crime justice-denied kind of way. Three men were brought to trial for the crime, with one man clearly guilty of involvement but two others picked up on a sliver of suspicion. While all three would eventually be granted parole, the two innocent men would not be exonerated until decades after the fact, in no small part due to the efforts of countless people profiled in the book, activists who saw a wrong and tried to right it.

Malcolm X still speaks to the conflicts in our nation, a hundred years after his birth and sixty after his death. "The Afterlife of Malcolm X, " by Mark Whitaker, shows how meaningful his short life was to America, especially as we wrestle with the very problems he spoke out about. It is a timely and necessary examination of his legacy and why he still speaks to us, in various forms.

[Shayla Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 rating! I haven't read as much on Malcolm X as I have on Martin Luther King, Jr. but this gave me more insight into how he has impacted generations 60 years after his assassination. The book goes into detail about the last days of his life including a firebombing of his home 2 days before and the actual tragedy itself. I was surprised that there was so much information out there about his murder and the fact that it was not investigated further until many decades later. I liked the parts of how Malcolm has influenced pop culture in particular as I grew up listening to rap and watching the movie with Denzel Washington (he still should have won the Oscar btw). He may have been a complicated figure, but his impact continues inspiring many around the world!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my read ICT pick for January, a book with 10, ten or x in the title. Let me start by saying that my knowledge of Malcolm X was pretty minimal before reading this book. I would say I knew he was a controversial figure during the Civil Rights era and not too much else. The main focus of this book is his influence on America since his assassination and also the trial of his assassins and eventual exoneration of two men who were convicted of killing him. I learned about the origin of the Nation of Islam in America and the fascinating beliefs that started this religion. Malcom X beliefs had really evolved after he broke away from the Nation of Islam in the time leading up to his death. I appreciated his ability to say he had been wrong before and openness to learning and changing the focus of his movement. One of my takeaways from this book was the cultural influences in music, art and theater due to the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I was struck by the diversity of the people who were influenced by Malcolm X from conservatives to liberals he gave language to their unspoken experiences of being black in America. This was a great deep dive into his legacy and influence in America.

[Chris Witkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book that brilliantly lives up to its title by indeed describing the afterlife of Malcolm X. The author not only investigates
His death but also shines a light on the many people who were strongly influenced by the life and writings of the renown man who was assassinated in 1965 after publicly breaking with the founder of the Nation of Islam. Countless writers sought to uncover the facts of Malcolm’s murder and countless people, including sports stars, rappers, artists, and politicians found guidance and clarity in his book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Well researched, the author packs a lot of facts into this immensely readable book.

[Greg Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative "sequel" to the autobiography, offering a detailed overview of Malcolm X's enduring and extraordinarily widespread posthumous influence, from politics to music to fashion. It also covers the decades-long effort to get to the bottom of who really killed Malcolm and to exonerate two wrongfully accused men. I hesitate to call it an uplifting book, since so much of it predicates on tragedy, corruption, systemic racism, and the fundamental failings of our government and criminal justice system, but the book does ultimately offer a message of hope.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the impact Malcolm X has had in the years after his death.
I really enjoyed this and learned things I didn't know before. (I read The Autobiography Of Malcom X when I was 22, and I've been interested in him and his legacy ever since)
This book also looks into who killed him, and the men wrongfully accused of his murder.
A must read

[Steve Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful telling of the enduring power of Malcolm X

This book underscores the enduring relevance of Malcolm X in American and world culture. I highly recommend this to all readers.

[Stan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Power Malcolm X

Malcolm X was murdered at the age of 39. This well written book explores the impact his teachings have had on generations after his death.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great look at the impact of Malcolm X after death on culture, community, and convictions with a major look at the exonerations of two of his alleged killers.

[Susan Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of Malcolm X is equally important as the history of MLK, Jr for the Civil Rights Movement. The 2 men certainly would have come together in time, had they not both been assassinated.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very worthwhile read - especially the second half when the narrative emerges from the shadow of Malcolm X’s autobiography.

[Sherman Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible read! I learned so much about how Malcolm X touched so many lives and still has an impact on our culture and society as a whole.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

At once looking at the effect Malcolm’s life and death has had over the last 60 years while also looking to exonerate his convicted killers, this book is comprehensively researched and nuanced. I enjoyed the pop culture section particularly as well as the trials coverage. The author eschews rumors and legend. I think the end product is a well built biography and a social commentary to boot.

[Kelly]

This book was well written, well researched, and educational. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to others.