Manning Marable was a legendary author of the long-awaited biography called, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.” The historian has now been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in history for his controversial novel. Marable’s 2011 biography of Malcolm X took over a decade to complete.
The Dayton, Ohio native acquired education at several schools; he received his undergraduate degree from University of Earlham, and a Masters and PHD from University of Maryland and University of Wisconsin. While building tenure at Tuskegee Institute, University of San Francisco, Cornell University and Fisk University, Manning Marable built an African-American Studies curriculum at Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University, and University of Colorado at Boulder.
Manning Marable was highly noted as the founder of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in 1993.
When Marable chose to pursue a decade-long journey writing the biography of Malcom X, his efforts were not widely accepted. Within the pages of the novel, Marable suggested that Malcolm X held a homosexual relationship with a white man and that the revered activist exaggerated the actual occurrences of his life. While some critics stood by Marable’s accusations, other critics called it erroneous and “egregious.” The novel sparked the release of several additional biographies on Malcolm X in response to Marable’s talked-about literary work.
In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Manning Marable’s “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” was ranked among the 10 Best Books of 2011 by the New York Times.
The public affairs activist and historian was diagnosed with sarcoidosis and underwent a double lung transplant as treatment in 2010. A year later, Manning Marable passed away from complications of pneumonia before the book was published.
