On the 56th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination, we talk with Tamara Payne, co-author of “The Dead Are Arising,” an award-winning biography—thirty years in the making—that offers a never-before-seen look into what molded Malcolm Little into Malcolm X.
Human rights activist Malcolm X speaking on stage at a rally, New York, circa 1960-1965. (Photo by Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Sunday, February 21st, 2021, marks the 56th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination. In this special segment from this week’s “Marc Steiner Show,” Marc has an in-depth conversation with Tamara Payne, co-author of the National Book Award-winning biography “The Dead Are Arising,” about the deep political and familial influences that helped Malcolm Little become Malcolm X. “The Dead Are Arising,” a book that gives a never-before-seen view of Malcolm’s life and legacy, was thirty years in the making, including thousands of original interviews and research by the late Les Payne, Tamara’s father, and Tamara herself. In this conversation, Marc and Payne discuss how the book expands our understanding of Malcolm X, as well as the process of putting the book together and seeing it through to publication.
Marc Steiner, interim co-Editor at TRNN, is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent his life working on issues of social justice. He walked his first picket line at age 13 and at age 16 became the youngest person in Maryland arrested for Civil Rights protests, in the Freedom Rides through Cambridge. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, Marc helped organize poor white communities with the Young Patriots, the white Appalachian counterpart to the Black Panthers. Early in his career he counseled at-risk youth in therapeutic settings and founded a theater program in the Maryland State prison system. He also taught Theatre for 10 years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. From 1993 through 1997 his signature “Marc Steiner Show” aired on Baltimore’s public radio airwaves, both WYPR – which Marc co-founded – and Morgan State University’s WEAA.
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