"Dangerous" describes Malcolm X for poet Sonia Sanchez, and civil rights attorney William Kunstler places him at "the cutting edge of the black struggle". For historian John Henrik Clarke he was "the brightest light we produced in the twentieth century"; to journalist Claude Lewis, "the bravest man I've ever known". Former CORE director James Farmer calls him "a champion". University professor Kathryn Gibson remembers him as "the protector". Part One of Malcolm X: As They Knew Him presents the remembrances of twenty-five men and women whose lives were dramatically touched--and in some cases radically altered--by Malcolm X. In their own words, extracted from recent interviews with David Gallen, they illuminate divers facets of Malcolm's dynamic character and career. Writer Maya Angelou, for instance, speaks of the contemplative Malcolm she knew in Africa, while newsman Mike Wallace recalls Malcolm's last daring media appearances. Alex Haley provides intimate glimpses of the private man, and Benjamin Karim shares his memories of Malcolm lecturing on the swine and teaching lessons in charity all the way from Harlem to Bridgeport, Connecticut. In the minds of those who knew him Malcolm is still vividly there: eating banana splits, quoting Shakespeare, driving his old blue Oldsmobile home to East Elmhurst, growing a beard. A man stands behind the myth. Malcolm speaks for himself in Part Two, "Getting It On the Record". He makes parables of chickens, snakes, and duck eggs with Robert Penn Warren, and in a solemn, reflective mood he shares his views on life, and death, with Claude Lewis one late December night. Included too are the Playboy interview with Alex Haley and his last televisioninterview, with Pierre Berton in January 1965, one month before he died at the hands of assassins in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom. In Part Three, "The Man, the Myth and the Mission", six outstanding American writers, among them James Baldwin, Eldridge Cleaver, and Peter Goldman, probe the aftermath of Malcolm's assassination and define the substance of his legacy. Their essays attest to the power of the man who attempted to raise the consciousness of twenty-two million African Americans and to give them back their pride--the man who, it has been said, invented black history.