Malcolm X: The FBI File

Compelling...A stunning composite of the black leader drawn from the declassified FBI documents spanning over a decade of undercover surveillance.

-- Atlantic News Service

The FBI opened its file on Malcolm X shortly after his release from a Boston prison in March 1953. Twelve years later -- on February 21, 1965 -- he was assassinated in a hail of bullets. Yet his fascinating story survived his violent death -- and a vital part of that story is found here in Malcolm X: The FBI File.

This extraordinary work distills the voluminous file kept on the most controversial and charismatic civil rights leader, which ran to more than thirty-six hundred pages. Accompanied by the incisive commentaries of Clayborne Carson, a leading scholar of the American Civil Rights movement, this is a fascinating biographical and historical document, one that sheds light on both Malcolm X and the government compelled to monitor him.

These pages allow us to understand better a remarkable orator who, among all his other gifts, was able to listen and grow.

-- The New York Times