THE CONVERGING AND REVOLUTIONARY LIVES OF MALCOLM X AND DR KING, with Dr Peniel Joseph

LE BREAKDOWN With Yasser Louati

Guest: Dr. Peniel Joseph, Author of «The Sword and The Shield », Professor of History at the University of Texas Austin, Founding Director Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. His past publications include: Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America and Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. Dr. Joseph’s most recent book, Stokely: A Life
With the release of his new book titled “The Sword and The Shield” renowned scholar, pioneer of “black power” studies and professor of History at the University of Texas Austin, Dr Peniel Joseph takes on the challenge of exploring the bound lives of Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

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“The more I read about Malcolm and Martin, the more I felt people got them wrong” Dr Peniel Joseph

In his timely research work, Dr Peniel shatters the notion that the two giants of the civil rights era were either competing opposites, bitter rivals or rigid ideologues stuck with either advocating violence or advocating pacifism. As James Baldwin put it in his essay “Malcolm and Martin”: “Malcolm and Martin, beginning at what seemed to be very different points …by the time each met his death there was practically no difference between them.
Before either had had time to think their new positions through, or, indeed, to do more than articulate them, they were murdered. Of the two, Malcolm moved swiftest (and was dead soonest), but the fates of both men were radically altered (I would say, frankly, sealed) the moment they attempted to release the black American struggle from the domestic context and relate it to the struggles of the poor and the non white all over the world.”

The interview with Dr Joseph, whom had the late Manning Marable as his tutor and Robin DG Kelly (himself a student of the late Cedric J Robinson, author of “Black Marxism”) in his dissertation committee begins with the genesis of his book and further explains how both Malcolm X and Dr King’s legacies are too narrowly explained to the rest of the world.

After presenting his book, Peniel Joseph gave his analysis of the ongoing protests following the racist execution of George Floyd and his take on liberals’ attempts to monetize the Black Lives Matter Movement in order to tone down its political demands.