In November 1963, [Malcolm X] gives his famous message to the grassroots address in Detroit, which really kind of marks off the real turning point in his own development.

There is no direct evidence that [Alex] Haley sat down with the F.B.I.

What is clear is that Malcolm X incorporated within the framework of black nationalism a pan-Africanist and internationalist perspective. In doing so, he began to reassess radically earlier positions sexism and patriarchy. He began to break with notions of sexism that he had long held as a member of the Nation of Islam, and began to advance and push forward women leadership in the OAAU.

The liberal uses the radical's language to achieve the conservative's aim: the preservation of the capitalist system, and the traditional ethnic/racial hierarchy within society.

[Alex] Haley felt he could make a solid case in favor of racial integration by showing what was - to white America - what was the consequence of their support for racial separatism that would end up producing a kind of hate, the hate that hate produced, to use the phrase that Mike Wallace used in his 1959 documentary on the Nation of Islam.

We know from Talmadge Hayer, one of the men who carried out the assassination, who was shot by Ruben X as he tried to flee the Audubon after shooting Malcolm X, we know that Hayer confessed years later to his Imam in prison that there had been a walk-through a week prior to February 21st [1965] at the Audubon Ballroom.

There's a hidden history. You see, Malcolm X and [Alex ] Haley collaborated to produce a magnificent narrative about the life of Malcolm X, but the two men had very different motives in coming together.