(May 13, 1950 – April 1, 2011)
Life and career
Marable was born in Dayton, Ohio. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College and his PhD from University of Maryland. Marable taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Ohio State University, where he was chairman of the Department of Black Studies. He later took a position at Columbia University, eventually becoming the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies. Marable also served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University.[1]
Marable served as Chair of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS).[3] Marable served on the Board of Directors for the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), a non-profit coalition of public figures working to utilize hip-hop as an agent for social change.[4] Marable was also a member of the New York Legislature's Amistad Commission, created to review state curriculum regarding the slave trade.[5]
It was reported in June 2004 by activist group Racism Watch that Marable had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use of Raphael Patai's book The Arab Mind which Marable described as "a book full of racially charged stereotypes and generalizations."[6] In a 2008 column, Marable endorsed Senator Barack Obama's bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.[7]
Marable, who was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, underwent a double lung transplant as treatment in summer 2010.[8] Marable died of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2011 in New York City at the age of 60.[9]
He is survived by his wife, Dr. Leith Mullings of New York; three children, Joshua Manning Marable of Boulder; Malaika Marable Serrano of Silver Spring, Md.; and Sojourner Marable Grimmett of Atlanta; two stepchildren, Alia Tyner of Manhattan and Michael Tyner of Brooklyn; a sister, Madonna Marable of Dayton; a mother, Dr. Rev. June Morehead Marable of Dayton, and three grandchildren.
Malcolm X biography
Marable's biography of Malcolm X has attracted criticism. Karl Evanzz, the author of The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X, referred to Marable's book as an "abomination" and stated that "it is a cavalcade of innuendo and logical fallacy, and is largely reinvented from previous works on the subject".[10]University of Chicago professor Michael Dawson defended Marable's biography stating Marable had "precisely focused on some of the critical central questions confronting black and progressive politics."[11]
Author and journalist Herb Boyd stated he found as many as 25 significant errors in the book, some of which he described as "absolutely egregious".[12]
Writings
- How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (1983) ISBN 9780896081659
- Race, Reform and Rebellion (1991) ISBN 9780878054930
- Beyond Black and White (1995) ISBN 9781859840498
- Speaking Truth to Power: Essays on Race, Resistance, and Radicalism (1996) ISBN 978-0813388281
- Black Liberation in Conservative America (1997) ISBN 9780896085596
- Black Leadership (1998) ISBN 9780231107464
- Let Nobody Turn Us Around (2000) ISBN 978-0847699308
- Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle (with Leith Mullings and Sophie Spencer-Wood, 2002) ISBN 978-0714842707
- The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life (2003) ISBN 978-0465043941
- W. E. B. DuBois: Black Radical Democrat (2005) ISBN 978-1-59451-019-9
- The Autobiography of Medgar Evers (2005, with Myrlie Evers-Williams) ISBN 0465021778
- Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011) ISBN 978-0670022205
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