Malcolm X Collection Sparks Interest From Scholars and the Public

Emory's recent acquisition of correspondence and personal effects from the slain civil rights activist Malcolm X has generated so much interest from the public that a portion of the collection has been put on immediate display. A story about the collection that appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday, Sept. 2 sparked requests from media, scholars and members of the public from across the country in seeing the materials. The Malcolm X exhibit is located in special collections of the Robert Woodruff Library (540 Asbury Circle). Special collections is open from 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information about the exhibition, call 404-727-6887. A campus map is available at http://www.emory.edu/MAP/. To see CNN's coverage of Emory's Malcolm X collection, go to http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/08/malcolm.x.papers.ap/.

Bibliographer Randall Burkett has had a steady stream of requests from scholars for access to the collection which became available for research on Tuesday, Sept. 7. The materials in the collection are mostly from Malcolm X's teen to early adult years from 1938-55 with a few items from the 1960s. "This shows there were a lot of Malcolm Xs out there, not just the angry, militant one people think of," says Emory history professor Leroy Davis. According to David Garrow, professor of legal history at Emory Law School and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Martin Luther King Jr., the materials reveal a very different person than the image Malcolm X cultivated of himself prior to his conversion to Islam. "This material shows what an immensely talented individual he was, even when he was 20 years old," says Garrow. "This collection makes crystal clear that Malcolm was someone of very impressive intellect long before he became a Muslim."

The materials are owned by collectors James Allen and John Littlefield and are on long-term loan to Woodruff Library. Although the collection is small, it is believed to be the only personal correspondence available to scholars, therefore very significant. Burkett and Davis hope that word of the collection will encourage others with Malcolm X materials to come forward.

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