Last month Russell Rickford published this commemoration of his late mentor Manning Marable.  In it Rickford makes mention of our anthology which criticizes the final work attributed to Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.  i understand that Rickford’s is more of a short essay and is part of a wider reflection of that journal on the life and work of Marable and that it is not a focused critique of our work (a point to which i will return).  But this is precisely why our work came to be; to help fill a tremendous void created by the massive product that became the final work attributed to Marable and its almost unquestioned welcoming by not only the establishment from which it was produced but so many activists, academics, journalists and lay readers alike. It was the force of Marable’s well-established (and deserved) brand that propelled then and now…