For release: March 1, 2013
For press information, contact Daphene R. McFerren, 901-678-3974

The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis will host a lecture about its 2011 National Book Award winner, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, on Tuesday, March 19, in the University Center Theatre. A reception will begin at 5:30 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6.

The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Zach Curlin garage adjacent to the University Center.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was written by the late Manning Marable. In addition to receiving the Hooks Institute National Book Award, it won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for history and is regarded as a model for historical biographies.

Over the course of his life, the man born Malcolm Little donned multiple masks. He was a hustler, prisoner, preacher, celebrity, villain and hero. He earned his place in history as a scathing critic of American race relations, a counterpoint to the nonviolent civil rights movement, and a voice of black nationalism heard throughout the world.

Marable deftly charted Malcolm X’s political evolution, while also revealing extraordinary details about his personal life. A longtime professor at Columbia University and former director of Columbia’s Center for Contemporary Black History, Marable died in April 2011, just before the publication of his masterwork. 

Zaheer Ali, project manager and principal researcher for Marable’s book, will deliver the lecture. He is also the project manager for The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University, an initiative to chronicle the life of Malcolm X through documents, materials and other media. Ali’s lecture will explore perspectives on the impact of the life of Malcolm X on race relations in America and abroad.

In 1996, University of Memphis officials received approval from the Tennessee Board of Regents to create the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change in the College of Arts & Sciences. The mission of the Institute is teaching, studying, and promoting civil rights and social change. The Hooks Institute archives include Hooks’ personal papers, which are housed in the Mississippi Valley Collection in the University’s McWherter Library.