Malcolm X is one of the towering figures in the struggle for black liberation. He has been identified as an articulator of the rage of black youth and a symbol of pride and defiance. But he was much more than that. Malcolm X was a major thinker and theoretician of black liberation. In the year before his assassination in February 1965, he underwent enormous intellectual growth and transformation. He moved from being a narrow nationalist to embrace a much more global perspective.

William Sales is a scholar and noted expert on Malcolm X. He is professor at Seton Hall University, where he chairs the Department of Africana and Diaspora Studies. He is the author of From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.