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The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
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About This Book
This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders. To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights, the sword vs. the shield. The struggle for black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era they came to define.
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Reviews
"delivers both strong storytelling and exemplary history, dismantling popular distortions of its subjects, and arriving at a nuanced and profoundly revealing portrayal of converging visions that informed, challenged, and sharpened each other even as their proponents seemed publicly and irrevocably at odds."
"Because readers know that each man would eventually suffer an early, violent death, the narrative takes on a poignant urgency as the chapters unfold ..."
"One of the great strengths of this book is the detail with which Joseph supports his thesis ..."
"This incisive work uncovers the subtleties of a relationship too often cast in broad strokes."
"[an] excellent joint history ..."
"Joseph eschews the usual easy oppositional narratives of educated versus working-class, Christian versus Muslim, integration versus separatism, lobbying versus grassroots activism, and non-violence versus self-defense to emphasize their political affinities and shared struggle ..."
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