By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: by Mark Whitaker, c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $30.99, 448 pages

Who will remember you in fifty years’ time?

A handful of friends – at least those who are still around – might recall you. Your offspring, grandkids, and greats, maybe people who stumble upon your tombstone. Think about it: who will remember you in 2075? And then read “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” by Mark Whitaker and learn about a legacy that still resonates a half-century later.

Betty Shabazz didn’t like to go to her husband’s speeches, but on that February night in 1965, he asked her to come with their daughters to the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Did Malcolm X sense that something bad would happen on that night? Surely. He was fully aware of the possibility, knowing that he’d been “a marked man” for months because of his very public break with the Nation of Islam.

As the news of his murder spread around New York and around the world, his followers and admirers reacted in many ways. His friend, journalist Peter Goldman, was “hardly shocked” because he also knew that Malcolm’s life was in danger, but the arrest of three men accused of the crime didn’t add up. It ultimately became Goldman’s “obsession.”

Malcolm’s co-writer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, quietly finished the book he started with Malcolm, and a small upstart publishing house snatched it up. A diverse group of magazines got in line to run articles about Malcolm X’s life, finally sensing that White America “’needed his voice even more than Blacks did.’”

But though Malcolm X was gone, he continued to leave an impact.

He didn’t live long enough to see the official founding of the Black Panther Party, but he was influential on its beginning. He never knew of the first Kwanzaa, or the triumphs of a convert named Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm left his mark on music. He influenced at least three major athletes.

He was a “touchstone” for a president …

While it’s true that “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” is an eye-opening book, one that works as a great companion to the autobiography, it’s also a fact that it’s somewhat scattered. Is it a look at Malcolm’s life, his legacy, or is it a “murder mystery”?

Turns out, it’s all three, but the storylines are not smooth. There are twists and tangents and that may take some getting used-to. Just when you’re immersed, even absorbed in this book, to the point where you forget about your surroundings, author Mark Whitaker abruptly moves to a different part of the story. It may be jarring.

And yet, it’s a big part of this book, and it’s essential for readers to know the investigation’s outcome and what we know today. It doesn’t change Malcolm X’s legacy, but it adds another frame around it.

If you’ve read the autobiography, if you haven’t thought about Malcolm X in a while, or if you think you know all there is to know, then you owe it to yourself to find “The Afterlife of Malcolm X.”

For you, this is a book you won’t easily forget.

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The Richmond Standard

A newly released Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury report raised concerns about public safety in Richmond caused by an understaffed police department.

The Grand Jury ultimately recommended that the Richmond City Council reverse its actions to defund the Richmond Police Department, which remains below the approved level of 146 sworn officers with a current vacancy of 23 officers, according to the report.

In 2014, when the RPD under Chief Chris Magnus gained national recognition for implementing a community policing model that drove down crime, the department boasted 196 sworn officers.

In recent years, RPD was described as severely understaffed in two independent reports, one by Raftelis Financial Consulting (2024) and another by Matrix Consulting Group (2023). Raftelis recommended the hiring of 27 more officers and Matrix recommended hiring 30. Despite these findings, “neither report has been fully discussed by the City Council in a public meeting,” the Grand Jury report notes.

Meanwhile, crime is on the rise. While homicides were down from 18 in 2021 to 11 in 2024, violent crimes overall jumped 22.6% in that time. Robbery and aggravated assault both increased by nearly 20%, with sexual assaults up 21%, according to the grand jury report’s findings.

Those numbers are likely higher since RPD’s limited staffing means police are unable to respond to all calls for service, according to RPD authorities.

The Grand Jury report noted a pivotal moment for the police department occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Jumping aboard a national trend to defund police, the City Council, led by the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), reallocated $3 million away from the RPD budget, leading to downsizing or elimination of RPD’s specialized investigative units.

The funds were redirected to support the YouthWORKS Program, unhoused services, the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS), and a new alternative non-police community response team.

The latter strategy, known as the Community Crisis Response Program (CCRP), aims to reduce the number of calls to dispatch that require a law enforcement response. But the program has yet to be fully implemented and is being challenged by the RPD’s union, which takes issue with CCRP employees becoming members of SEIU Local 1021, a separate city union that routinely helps to elect RPA members to the City Council.

The Grand Jury recommends that the city use a portion of the $550 million Chevron settlement funds to hire and retain more officers. The City Council recently expressed interest in using those funds to address the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. To read the full, 10-page Grand Jury report, go to https://www.cc-courts.org/civil/docs/grandjury/2024-2025/2503/2503-DiminishingFundsandFewerOfficers.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawKR1AVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFxeW1vUTFXNWNWazZCZmxIAR6FJYmFEfK098FXFhC4lvSCMSbHr5aEVno_sZqukzhZKI9iEvsu8kr_KoKX6g_aem_Xp15VG4_irpJqDWBcAI7-g

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