From the Dead Level: Malcolm X and Me

by Hakim A Jamal

 <<From the day when he was 14 and first laid eyes on Malcolm (then a dope seller and sharp dresser named Red with money and a gun in Boston's Roxbury ghetto), Jamal (then Allan Donald) took him for his model. When Malcolm began preaching for the Muslims Jamal wandered into the mosque and Malcolm taught him to stop hating black and be a man. Testifying to his reconstructed life Jamal says he owes it all to Malcolm X: ""One day I'd realize Malcolm was God."" After the split with Elijah Muhammad, Jamal followed Malcolm out of the Fruit of Islam; he claims to have seen him in Los Angeles in January 1965, a month before his murder and says that the trip was arranged to look after two sisters The Messenger had impregnated. He paints some thrillerdiller scenes of Muslims stalking Malcolm, marked for death, and confirms the proto-Panther politics he was developing just prior to his death. The last chapters which contain lurid exposes of Elijah's ""zombies"" are as diabolic as Malcolm is pure and they will have obvious interest (despite the lack of any documentation for the ghoulish allegations) for those tracking Malcolm's ideological shifts.>>

-- Kirkus Reviews

Hakim Abdullah Jamal (1931 – 1973) was the name adopted by American activist Allen Donaldson, who was a cousin of Malcolm X and later became an associate of Michael X. Jamal wrote From the Dead Level, a memoir of his life and memories of Malcolm X.

On May 1, 1973, Jamal was killed when four men burst into his apartment in Boston and shot him repeatedly. Police attributed the crime to a factional dispute, linked to Jamal's attacks on Elijah Muhammad.

Random House

"First American Edition"

Hardcover

273 pages

0394462343