Patrick Parr is Professor of English at Lakeland University Japan. This interview is based on his new book, Malcolm Before X (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write Malcolm Before X? PP: Back in 2012, I’d […]
Malcolm X
Did Martin Luther King Jr. really criticize Malcolm X?
Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: Jonathan Eig was deep in the Duke University archives researching his new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he made an alarming discovery: King’s harshest and most famous criticism of Malcolm X, in which […]
The history of “woke”
In a piece at The Washington Post, writer Bijan C. Bayne argues that “woke” is “the least woke word in U.S. English.” Here is a taste: You want to talk about Black history? Well, here’s a bit of etymology about […]