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The deep cultural and political respect for El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz among younger civil rights activists, black artists and writers existed even before his assassination in 1965. Amiri Baraka, the leader of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writes that Malcolm was, for him, the personification of "blackness... my maximum leader/teacher..." In the aftermath of his death, as the Black Arts Movement grew, hundreds of poems, cultural essays, plays and public events were written and organized around the towering figure of Malcolm X. With the publication of The Autobiography of Malcolm X in late 1965, his reputation among millions of white Americans also grew. But those white Americans who had been privileged to know Malcolm personally, recognized the vast difference between his public and private image. As attorney William Kuntsler observed in 1994: "I liked Malcolm instantly... I thought Malcolm would be a fire-eater, burning with hatred, with no sense of humor. He was actually quite the opposite, a warm, responsive human being, not at all as he was depicted by the media... He spent most of his public life trying to convince his black audiences that they had to resist the white avalanche 'by any means necessary.' A failure to resist, he often said, was part of a residual slave mentality. I completely agreed with him." In the late 1980s, a new generation of African Americans came to discover Malcolm X. It was in the dire context of rapid deindustrialization and economic decay in America's central cities, the collapse of public institutions providing services to the poor, and the devastation of the crack cocaine epidemic. America's political and corporate establishment withdrew from any serious discussion about ways to solve pressing urban problems. It was in this environment that what became known as the "hip hop generation" found a charismatic, powerful voice to express its own rage, alienation, and spirit of resistance-Malcolm X. Malcolm was frequently mentioned in the music of virtually every major hip hop artist and artistic group, from Public Enemy and N.W.A. to Lauryn Hill and Wu-Tang Clan. But in taking text excerpts from Malcolm's writings, and samplings from his speeches, they frequently obscured or lost the full meaning of what he was attempting to accomplish, both politically and culturally. As Malcolm was transformed into a cultural icon, he was increasingly projected as an "image" to represent corporate and political interests which had little connection with what he fought to achieve. The mantle of icon presented Malcolm in a fixed cultural universe, ruptured from the unique and specific historical, political and social forces which created his world. But as cultural studies scholar Michael Eric Dyson has written, the real significance of Malcolm X is best expressed in his personal example of self-criticism, and his belief that everyday people-not presidents or kings, not the rich and famous-possessed the capacity to change themselves, in order to change the conditions under which they lived. In Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, Dyson observes: "Malcolm also came to believe that real leadership was empowering people to lead themselves, to eventually do without the moral suffering that he had endured at the hands of charismatic but corrupt leadership. Malcolm's push near the end of his life was for people to learn and grow as much as they could in the struggle to free mind and body from the poisonous persistence of racism and blind ethnic loyalty, as well as economic and class slavery. He apologized for his former mistakes, took his lumps for things he'd done wrong in the past, and tried to move on, even though, as he lamented, many devotees (and enemies) wouldn't allow him to 'turn the corner.' For Malcolm's sake, and for the sake of our survival, black folk must turn the corner."
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