![]() There are still competing interests at play. ![]() There are also interviews with people who knew Ali or Malcolm X personally, including the now-adult children of both men.Įveryone involved has a different version of what went wrong. Helping in this are commentators like Harvard's Cornel West, Todd Boyd, professor of media studies at USC, and oral historian Zaheer Ali. Clarke does an excellent job of laying it all out, presenting Malcolm X's story, and then Cassius Clay's, so that their eventual meeting is placed in a larger context. Through Ali and Malcolm X the history of the 20th century can be seen, with conflicts and accord writ large in their friendship (and then their "breakup"). What happened matters, but what also matters is the lasting impact these two men, and their relationship, had on the culture. Roberts and Smith are the primary interviewees here, acting as guides through the complicated timelines, bolstered by the copious extant documentary footage of speeches, interviews, press conferences, weigh-ins, etc. "Blood Brothers," based on the 2016 book Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, co-written by Purdue's Randy Roberts and Georgia Tech sports history professor Johnny Smith, bring the friendship front of center. How these men intersected has been covered in documentaries, books, as well as multiple fictional portrayals, like last year's "One Night in Miami" (directed by Regina King), Spike Lee's " Malcolm X" and Michael Mann's " Ali." The EPIX series "Godfather of Harlem," with Forest Whitaker as "Bumpy" Johnson and Nigel Thatch as Malcolm X, looks at the vibrant world of 1960s Harlem, where Malcolm X operated. They both stood as bold examples of what a free mind looked like, what a free mind could do. Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X were two very different men, from two very different places, but they both understood that one of the primary threats to Black Americans was the racist culture's relentless attack on the mind.
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