The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

Tamara Payne describes the ways Malcolm X influenced her father Les Payne, the author of The Dead Are Arising. Hearing Malcolm X lecture helped Les shed his self-loathing: “Whites were no longer superior. Blacks […] were no longer inferior” (xii).

While researching the book, Les Payne meets Philbert and Wilfred Little, two of Malcolm’s brothers. They showed him that he didn’t know as much about Malcolm X as he thought. He travels the world researching this book over the course of three decades. His research provides the most definitive work on Malcolm X to date. Payne’s daughter Tamara finished the book after Les died unexpectedly in 2018.

Six members of the Ku Klux Klan visit the house of Louise Little and demand to see her husband. The pregnant Louise tells them that her husband is not home. Five-year-old Wilfred Little watches. She argues when they tell her to leave town. A man knocks one of the windows out with a rifle butt. Wilfred and the other children will always remember their mother’s defiance.

Louise calls her husband, the Reverend Earl Little, sometimes referred to as “Early.” Earl is in Milwaukee and returns home quickly to Omaha where the Littles live in a farmhouse they rent from white neighbors.