The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

This book juxtaposes MLK with Malcolm X and in doing so brings more clarity to the effectiveness of both by virtue of their almost symbiotic existence. I am one who has grown to admire how MLK maintained his commitment to peaceful direct action protests throughout his all too short life. I have also been curious about Malcolm X who made several serious transformations through his all too short life. As a white person, I have always been leery of Malcolm X as he is too often presented as an advocate of violence among races as a way to make progress. This book helped clarify for me that all is not as it seems. The implication is that MLK would not have been as effective with non-violence had there not been Malcolm X articulately legitimizing the likelihood that violence would be the only way to break the yoke of racism in our country. On the other side of the coin, it is unlikely Malcolm X would have made his final transformation without the example of MLK. The impact of both men is best exemplified in their attendance at the Senate hearings and brief encounter for the Civil Rights Act. Just having them both there likely kept the Senators focused. MLK's presence helped focus them that they either pass the bill and hope to avoid violence. Meanwhile, Malcolm X' presence helped them keep it real in the case that no bill passed. Reading this book during the tensions brought about by the police murder of George Floyd makes this book even more interesting. While MLK arguably got more done in his life with his approach, Malcolm X was the more prophetic as to whether or not passing civil rights legislation would mean the end of racism and related discontent.

As I was reading about the relationship between Martin & Malcolm, I began thinking about a binary star system (and my knowledge of celestial science is beyond limited, but work with me here). I envisioned these two giants of men spinning around each other, their action plans diverging greatly at the onset. Their gravitational fields - stronger than anything in the vicinity - pulled & pushed on each other and others close to them. Over time they became stronger, brighter, magnetic, and in the end, a sort of convergence of philosophy; almost identical. Even though they were in the same space, history has them meeting only once, but destiny has them linked together forever. Hopefully, The Sword and the Shield will have you in deep reflection as well. This is my third Peniel Joseph book on the shelf. I was waiting for the release of this book and it was worth the wait.

This book is an outstanding contribution to African American history. Joseph brilliantly and deftly narrates the lives of two of the most important figures in the fight for global human rights. His work demonstrates that Malcolm and Martin were indeed more alike than dissimilar, and that their contributions have radically transformed our understandings of Black dignity and Black citizenship locally and abroad. Bravo Dr. Joseph!

The subtitle of Professor Joseph’s dual biography is “The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr,” and the book’s goal is to demonstrate that King was more revolutionary and Malcolm more pragmatic than the general view of the two leaders. Given the current state of race relations in America, the book could not be more timely. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. His five earlier books include The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era; Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America; and Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. He acknowledges from the beginning that there were substantive differences between Malcolm and Kain, in the role of violence in organizing a political revolution and on the source of racial oppression. But a binary understanding of the men is incomplete. “Two-dimensional characterization of their activism, relationship, and influence,” he writes, “obscure how the substantive differences between them were often complimentary. It underestimates the way they influenced each other. And it shortchanges the political radicalism always inherent in each, even when they seemed to be reformist or reactionary.” After two short chapters sketching their backgrounds (“The Radical Dignity of Malcolm X” and “The Radical Citizenship of Martin Luther King”) Joseph spends the rest of the book on the ways in which the two reacted to, were affected by, and influenced the Civil Rights movement covering roughly the period 1954 (Brown vs. Board of Education) through February 1965 (Malcolm’s assassination) to April 1968 (King’s assassination). The Sword and the Shield could be read as a primer on how to effect social change. King in Birmingham, AL, advocating nonviolent resistance with rallies, meetings, and boycotts of downtown stores. Malcolm arguing that it was necessary to fight against police brutality. “President Kennedy,” said Malcolm, “did not send troops to Alabama when dogs were biting black babies. He then sent troops after the Negroes demonstrated their ability to defend themselves.” When an off-duty police lieutenant shot a 15-year-old black teenager in New York City in July 1964, protests erupted into a full-scale riot in Harlem. Martin went to the city in the temporary vacuum among black militants because Malcolm was in Africa. It was a fruitless. “Harlem exposed King to a deeper reality of institutional racism that made him better able to understand Malcolm X’s political rage, as well as the intractable forces that remained obstacles to the revolutionary changes that true justice required.” Readers who want a more complete portrait of Malcolm X should read Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. For the life of King, there is the three-volume biography and history of the Civil Rights movement: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge. I lived through the period The Sword and the Shield covers. I met King (my college newspaper held a fund-raiser for the SCLC) and lived in Harlem and I clearly recall the 1964 riot. Reading Joseph’s book, however, made me wonder if I were sleepwalking the entire time. So much I didn’t know. So much is new. So much is made clear. In his Epilogue, Joseph writes there is no way “to understand the history, struggle, and debate over race and democracy in contemporary America without understanding Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’s relationship to each other, to their own era, and, most crucially, to our time.” While the Civil Rights movement outlawed the worst of Jim Crow, America has managed to innovate “new forms of racial oppression in criminal justice, public schools, residential segregation, and poverty that scar much of the black community.” The Sword and the Shield puts an important period in American history and two key figures into context.

Dr. Peniel Joseph is an amazing writer and researcher. I love that he offers a lens on Malcolm X and MLK that we normally aren’t taught or shown. I learned so much from this book and plan to implement parts of it in my high school classroom.

Smart, insightful, concise. If you think you know MLK and MX, think again. This book will challenge your understanding.

I am a professional historian, but I don't work on the United States, so I was able to read this work both as a professional and as an amateur. I enjoyed it tremendously at both levels. As a historian, I admired the author's skillful storytelling, his effective use of primary sources and telling quotes, and the craftsmanship with which he pulled these two men's stories together into a single argument. I was also very much interested in the ways in which their careers and thinking were developed in tangent with wider international struggles. As an amateur, I'm not sure that this work fundamentally changed my understanding of either Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr., but it certainly enriched my understanding tremendously. I also felt - and this was certainly intentional on the part of the author - that the work spoke directly to America's struggles with racial and social justice today. As a citizen, this was a powerful book to read. I did feel that the author brought Malcolm alive in a way that he did not with King, but this is a quibble, not a complaint. Note: I "read" this work as an audiobook. The voice actor for the audiobook did an absolutely amazing job.

Much of the history of anything we learn tends toward simplistic narratives and easy dichotomies. Nuance and complex intersections are either unseen or washed away. For a first-rate example of historical analysis that flouts these tendencies, you have no further to look than Peniel Joseph's "The Sword and the Shield": a well-researched, well-written, and balanced appraisal of the intersecting lives of Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Its basic thesis, argued with a gusto lacking in many historical reconstructions, is that we have too long pigeon-holed both of the seminal figures of the 1960s' Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.: Malcolm, the relentless advocate of "radical black dignity," taking arms for self-defense and black power; Martin, the equally tireless preacher of "radical black citizenship" whose touchstones were nonviolence and civil rights. Malcom, the sword; Martin, the shield. By tracing their respective family histories, religious influences, and class backgrounds, Joseph does not intend to meld these key figures into one. Their intellectual influences, world-views, and dispositions were very different. What Joseph demonstrates is the gradual yet genuine influence Malcolm and Martin exerted on each other. In the final years before their assassinations (respectively, 1965 and 1968), Joseph shows how Malcom's radicalism had been reshaped by Martin's pragmatism, and how Martin's own, differently inflected radicalism was becoming more revolutionary under Malcolm's influence. Joseph concludes, "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., found common ground and a measure of unacknowledged political convergence through their respective advocacy of black dignity and black citizenship" (p. 313)—and that cross-pollination reverberates in America's political and racial turmoil to this day. If there be a deficiency in Joseph's analysis—here I speak as an amateur—it is that his source material for Malcolm runs out three years before King's. We may be unable to determine how far Malcolm, in his life's last year, would have made common cause with King. In the latter's case we have three years' more evidence, suggesting that King was moving more closely to Malcolm's critique of repressive capitalism and American imperialism in Viet Nam and elsewhere. Opening this book, I thought I knew something about its titular figures. By its end I realized I had, but my ignorance was vast. "The Sword and the Shield" is one of the best books of American history I have read in a long time. More important: it sets the record straight. Its epilogue's epigraph quotes James Baldwin: "I don't think that any black person can speak of Malcolm and Martin without wishing they were here." I'm a late middle-aged white person. Having read Peniel Jones's latest work, I feel the same.

A book that has taught me more about two black heroes and phenomenal leaders than I ever knew existed. At first glance, this book could be discerned as a delineation of two black, historical figures with flaws that almost outshined their righteous endeavors. However, after acknowledging the imperfect human natures that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. possessed in this book that, I was able to perceive the gravity that their presence and name brought to the global economy. They did not settle. They did not quit when hampered by friend or foe. They both equally believed in one's resolve to enliven a reality that would equalize a nation, and the world, for all to live freely, unbothered by the color of anyone’s skin. Complimenting and assisting the other on a journey that once appeared as opposition to the other, later distinguished an unbelievable dynamic force. Alive they fought for and, posthumously, achieved radical black dignity and citizenship for those rendered less than human, less than equal. Although the fight for equality continues in a myriad of ways, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. are both venerated and honored as exemplary, historical leaders.

Excellent book. Dr. Joseph treats both men with sensitivity to their lived truths as well as their popular and scholarly legacies. He offers penetrating insights and fresh analyses. This is a very useful addition to scholarship in the field.

This book juxtaposes MLK with Malcolm X and in doing so brings more clarity to the effectiveness of both by virtue of their almost symbiotic existence. I am one who has grown to admire how MLK maintained his commitment to peaceful direct action protests throughout his all too short life. I have also been curious about Malcolm X who made several serious transformations through his all too short life. As a white person, I have always been leery of Malcolm X as he is too often presented as an advocate of violence among races as a way to make progress. This book helped clarify for me that all is not as it seems. The implication is that MLK would not have been as effective with non-violence had there not been Malcolm X articulately legitimizing the likelihood that violence would be the only way to break the yoke of racism in our country. On the other side of the coin, it is unlikely Malcolm X would have made his final transformation without the example of MLK. The impact of both men is best exemplified in their attendance at the Senate hearings and brief encounter for the Civil Rights Act. Just having them both there likely kept the Senators focused. MLK's presence helped focus them that they either pass the bill and hope to avoid violence. Meanwhile, Malcolm X' presence helped them keep it real in the case that no bill passed. Reading this book during the tensions brought about by the police murder of George Floyd makes this book even more interesting. While MLK arguably got more done in his life with his approach, Malcolm X was the more prophetic as to whether or not passing civil rights legislation would mean the end of racism and related discontent.

As I was reading about the relationship between Martin & Malcolm, I began thinking about a binary star system (and my knowledge of celestial science is beyond limited, but work with me here). I envisioned these two giants of men spinning around each other, their action plans diverging greatly at the onset. Their gravitational fields - stronger than anything in the vicinity - pulled & pushed on each other and others close to them. Over time they became stronger, brighter, magnetic, and in the end, a sort of convergence of philosophy; almost identical. Even though they were in the same space, history has them meeting only once, but destiny has them linked together forever. Hopefully, The Sword and the Shield will have you in deep reflection as well. This is my third Peniel Joseph book on the shelf. I was waiting for the release of this book and it was worth the wait.

This book is an outstanding contribution to African American history. Joseph brilliantly and deftly narrates the lives of two of the most important figures in the fight for global human rights. His work demonstrates that Malcolm and Martin were indeed more alike than dissimilar, and that their contributions have radically transformed our understandings of Black dignity and Black citizenship locally and abroad. Bravo Dr. Joseph!

The subtitle of Professor Joseph’s dual biography is “The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr,” and the book’s goal is to demonstrate that King was more revolutionary and Malcolm more pragmatic than the general view of the two leaders. Given the current state of race relations in America, the book could not be more timely. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. His five earlier books include The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era; Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America; and Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. He acknowledges from the beginning that there were substantive differences between Malcolm and Kain, in the role of violence in organizing a political revolution and on the source of racial oppression. But a binary understanding of the men is incomplete. “Two-dimensional characterization of their activism, relationship, and influence,” he writes, “obscure how the substantive differences between them were often complimentary. It underestimates the way they influenced each other. And it shortchanges the political radicalism always inherent in each, even when they seemed to be reformist or reactionary.” After two short chapters sketching their backgrounds (“The Radical Dignity of Malcolm X” and “The Radical Citizenship of Martin Luther King”) Joseph spends the rest of the book on the ways in which the two reacted to, were affected by, and influenced the Civil Rights movement covering roughly the period 1954 (Brown vs. Board of Education) through February 1965 (Malcolm’s assassination) to April 1968 (King’s assassination). The Sword and the Shield could be read as a primer on how to effect social change. King in Birmingham, AL, advocating nonviolent resistance with rallies, meetings, and boycotts of downtown stores. Malcolm arguing that it was necessary to fight against police brutality. “President Kennedy,” said Malcolm, “did not send troops to Alabama when dogs were biting black babies. He then sent troops after the Negroes demonstrated their ability to defend themselves.” When an off-duty police lieutenant shot a 15-year-old black teenager in New York City in July 1964, protests erupted into a full-scale riot in Harlem. Martin went to the city in the temporary vacuum among black militants because Malcolm was in Africa. It was a fruitless. “Harlem exposed King to a deeper reality of institutional racism that made him better able to understand Malcolm X’s political rage, as well as the intractable forces that remained obstacles to the revolutionary changes that true justice required.” Readers who want a more complete portrait of Malcolm X should read Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. For the life of King, there is the three-volume biography and history of the Civil Rights movement: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge. I lived through the period The Sword and the Shield covers. I met King (my college newspaper held a fund-raiser for the SCLC) and lived in Harlem and I clearly recall the 1964 riot. Reading Joseph’s book, however, made me wonder if I were sleepwalking the entire time. So much I didn’t know. So much is new. So much is made clear. In his Epilogue, Joseph writes there is no way “to understand the history, struggle, and debate over race and democracy in contemporary America without understanding Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’s relationship to each other, to their own era, and, most crucially, to our time.” While the Civil Rights movement outlawed the worst of Jim Crow, America has managed to innovate “new forms of racial oppression in criminal justice, public schools, residential segregation, and poverty that scar much of the black community.” The Sword and the Shield puts an important period in American history and two key figures into context.

Dr. Peniel Joseph is an amazing writer and researcher. I love that he offers a lens on Malcolm X and MLK that we normally aren’t taught or shown. I learned so much from this book and plan to implement parts of it in my high school classroom.

Smart, insightful, concise. If you think you know MLK and MX, think again. This book will challenge your understanding.

I am a professional historian, but I don't work on the United States, so I was able to read this work both as a professional and as an amateur. I enjoyed it tremendously at both levels. As a historian, I admired the author's skillful storytelling, his effective use of primary sources and telling quotes, and the craftsmanship with which he pulled these two men's stories together into a single argument. I was also very much interested in the ways in which their careers and thinking were developed in tangent with wider international struggles. As an amateur, I'm not sure that this work fundamentally changed my understanding of either Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr., but it certainly enriched my understanding tremendously. I also felt - and this was certainly intentional on the part of the author - that the work spoke directly to America's struggles with racial and social justice today. As a citizen, this was a powerful book to read. I did feel that the author brought Malcolm alive in a way that he did not with King, but this is a quibble, not a complaint. Note: I "read" this work as an audiobook. The voice actor for the audiobook did an absolutely amazing job.

Much of the history of anything we learn tends toward simplistic narratives and easy dichotomies. Nuance and complex intersections are either unseen or washed away. For a first-rate example of historical analysis that flouts these tendencies, you have no further to look than Peniel Joseph's "The Sword and the Shield": a well-researched, well-written, and balanced appraisal of the intersecting lives of Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Its basic thesis, argued with a gusto lacking in many historical reconstructions, is that we have too long pigeon-holed both of the seminal figures of the 1960s' Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.: Malcolm, the relentless advocate of "radical black dignity," taking arms for self-defense and black power; Martin, the equally tireless preacher of "radical black citizenship" whose touchstones were nonviolence and civil rights. Malcom, the sword; Martin, the shield. By tracing their respective family histories, religious influences, and class backgrounds, Joseph does not intend to meld these key figures into one. Their intellectual influences, world-views, and dispositions were very different. What Joseph demonstrates is the gradual yet genuine influence Malcolm and Martin exerted on each other. In the final years before their assassinations (respectively, 1965 and 1968), Joseph shows how Malcom's radicalism had been reshaped by Martin's pragmatism, and how Martin's own, differently inflected radicalism was becoming more revolutionary under Malcolm's influence. Joseph concludes, "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., found common ground and a measure of unacknowledged political convergence through their respective advocacy of black dignity and black citizenship" (p. 313)—and that cross-pollination reverberates in America's political and racial turmoil to this day. If there be a deficiency in Joseph's analysis—here I speak as an amateur—it is that his source material for Malcolm runs out three years before King's. We may be unable to determine how far Malcolm, in his life's last year, would have made common cause with King. In the latter's case we have three years' more evidence, suggesting that King was moving more closely to Malcolm's critique of repressive capitalism and American imperialism in Viet Nam and elsewhere. Opening this book, I thought I knew something about its titular figures. By its end I realized I had, but my ignorance was vast. "The Sword and the Shield" is one of the best books of American history I have read in a long time. More important: it sets the record straight. Its epilogue's epigraph quotes James Baldwin: "I don't think that any black person can speak of Malcolm and Martin without wishing they were here." I'm a late middle-aged white person. Having read Peniel Jones's latest work, I feel the same.

A book that has taught me more about two black heroes and phenomenal leaders than I ever knew existed. At first glance, this book could be discerned as a delineation of two black, historical figures with flaws that almost outshined their righteous endeavors. However, after acknowledging the imperfect human natures that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. possessed in this book that, I was able to perceive the gravity that their presence and name brought to the global economy. They did not settle. They did not quit when hampered by friend or foe. They both equally believed in one's resolve to enliven a reality that would equalize a nation, and the world, for all to live freely, unbothered by the color of anyone’s skin. Complimenting and assisting the other on a journey that once appeared as opposition to the other, later distinguished an unbelievable dynamic force. Alive they fought for and, posthumously, achieved radical black dignity and citizenship for those rendered less than human, less than equal. Although the fight for equality continues in a myriad of ways, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. are both venerated and honored as exemplary, historical leaders.

Excellent book. Dr. Joseph treats both men with sensitivity to their lived truths as well as their popular and scholarly legacies. He offers penetrating insights and fresh analyses. This is a very useful addition to scholarship in the field.

I’d read the autobiography of Malcolm X in college. Have always been fascinated in how these men differed. Learned a lot in this book and some ancillary political history as well. Recommended to serious readers. Tough start but middle through the end was excellent.

Exceptionally well-written and engaging look at the two titans of the civil rights era. Joseph argues that the two men are often constructed in opposition to each other even though their views complimented and eventually significantly converged. I read this book to learn more about Malcolm and Martin and how both men advocated for Black dignity and citizenship. It was well worth the effort. I learned a lot about both men's upbringing and how they approached civil rights. Joseph's treatment is nuanced and pushes back against the often flattened and white-washed version of both men and the era.

As a Black Man swiftly approaching the age of 65 I have lived through a good portion of the times that this book covers however I have never been more informed as to the historical times of Black History and the Civil Rights/Black Power Movement than after having completed this book. Highly Recommended!!!

I truly enjoyed reading this book and seeing the parallels tied together between what Minister Malcolm X was teaching & what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was seeking and how in the end they both were in sync in their thinking. Achieving Black Equality & Respect is what they both wanted. Highly Recommend reading this book.

Simply a great historical review of 2 iconic Civil Rights leaders of the 1960’s with a lot of information heretofore unknown to me. A critical book to read for all those interested in the Civil Rights movement both then and now.

Excellent comparative view on two titans in American history. I’ve read individual biographies but really appreciate this look at Malcom X and Rev. King together.

Dr. Joseph does an extraordinary job of tying the lives of two very complex people into one cohesive story. It's amazing how much he is able to fit in this book without it needing to be 1000 pages long.

It was a gift, the receiving party loved it

I will enjoy this read.

CANNOT WAIT TO READ, EXCELLENT QUALITY!!!!

I have read many books about Dr. King and Malcolm X and I would highly recommend this book to be added to anyone's read list if they are interested in learning more about the two iconic black leaders.

Book is great but it arrived in terrible condition. The pages were all folded and disheveled and the cover was ripped.

My book covering was in bad condition. It does not look like a brand new book. The book is an excellent read, but I gave 2 stars due to the outer appearance.

Offered new insights into both men. Must read

New insight into MLS, Jr. Malcomb X. Plus a review of the civil rights movement.

Considering my political inclinations, classical liberal/Reagan Conservative, you would think that this work would not appeal to me. You could not be more wrong, which speaks not just to the importance of the figures involved but the exceptional work of the author. Joseph points out that our images of both MLK and Malcolm have ossified over time and frankly, they could not be more wrong. The saintly MLK that is venerated every holiday marking his birth is a false image. It is an MLK with his sharp angles smoothed out. The warrior for social justice is either forgotten or not mentioned. The the bomb-throwing rhetoric of Malcolm X also does not reflect the evolution of his ideology and faith. Joseph does not pretend that elements of his thesis are new. He quotes James Baldwin who wrote about his mutual friends and how their paths ultimately converged towards the end of their lives. I cannot praise this work enough. It is an exceptional dual biography that traces not only the lives but the intellectual journeys these two men. Joseph's knowledge of the period is apparent. He builds on the work of other biographies but also culls from primary sources to provide perspective. This should be your first stop if you want to learn about Malcolm, Martin and their troubled times. Leave your ideological hang-ups at the door and read this book.

In our current times of George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests, this is a terrific read - especially if, like me, you weren't yet of age when Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were alive. In fact, one of my highlights from the book (near the end) is arguably even more apparent today than when the author wrote it: "Through demonstrations, protests, and policy agendas, social justice activists have forcefully argued that America’s criminal justice system, persistently segregated and underfunded public schools, and discriminatory finance and housing practices represent a gateway to a sprawling system of racial inequality and economic injustice that has grown, not diminished, since the 1960s." I enjoyed the dual biography aspect of this book and the way the author helps the reader to understand how each man, to differing degrees, used both "sword" and "shield" type tactics to tackle racial inequality. I also grew to understand how disparate not only Martin and Malcolm were, but also the many other civil rights organizations who shared their goals. The time between the work of Martin & Malcolm, and the present, represents my adult lifetime. In that time so many things have gone so well - the size of the economy, globalization, technology, wealth at the top - but racial injustice and racial inequality have not gone so well. What actions will make my kid's adult lifetimes see that change? This book made me think a lot about that (vote! is #1 on my list). I place this book up there with Ta Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me", and the film "I am not your Negro", as essential recent content on race. All are perfectly suited to Covid time-at-home in the midst of 2020 protests for racial justice.

I want to initially commend Dr. Joseph for using countless verifiable primary and secondary sources to support his thesis. In addition, after reading this masterpiece I am more enlightened about these two prominent African American sages. Kudos Dr. Joseph!

Excellent scholarship, thorough research, approachable prose, the ingredients necessary for a meaningful and necessary contribution to the study of Malcolm and Martin and their philosophies that were in constant flux influenced by not only each other, but by international travel, aides, and adversaries. I came away impressed by the way Peniel Joseph weaved the biographies of Malcolm and Martin together in a linear time line , so one could easily grasp the changes in rhetoric, strategy and philosophy as it happened. That kept this text thoroughly engaging and underscored the willingness of both titans to be flexible and open to shift gears on the road to delivering our people to that elusive goal of freedom. Whenever the subject of Malcolm and Martin is breached the debate is often cast as integration vs separation, and/or violence vs. self-defense. This text does an excellent job of debunking those simplistic battles for a more nuanced look. And by the time of Martin's death he sounded more like Malcolm than anyone could have imagined just three years earlier. The brilliance here is in amplifying the voices so you can easily hear what you may have easily missed in books and articles of lesser scholarship.

This is a frustrating book to read. The author, Peniel E. Joseph, begins the book railing against the inch deep understandings most people have of the book’s subjects, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. It goes without saying that both men are far more complicated than the common view of one as a militant (Malcolm) and one a peace maker (Martin). However, he over compensates to such a degree as to make this almost unreadable for much of the book. This is really a hagiography of Malcolm with occasional references to Martin. Malcolm is the deep thinker and visionary while Martin is not much more than an empty vessel. Long sections of the book detail Malcolm’s speechmaking and jet setting, while Letter from a Birmingham Jail and the 1963 March on Washington only get a few pages a piece. This problem somewhat lessens after the assassination of Malcolm. However, even though he continues to preach peaceful non-violence, Martin’s last few years until his own assassination are supposedly spent implementing much of what Malcolm espoused. This is hard to swallow. With the recent increase in books detailing issues of racial justice there are likely far better books documenting this time period than this one.

The Sword and The Shield is a dual biography of Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. The key takeaway for me is that even though they differed on the tactics that they would use to achieve their objectives they would eventually see value in the tactics that the other man used. Malcom X sought to internationalize the movement working through the UN as part of a global African community of human rights while MLK sought integration with whites. These differences brought the men into tension as King saw Malcom X as a radical while Malcom viewed King as too soft. They shared similar objectives but differed tactically and tonally which made any sort of real collaboration difficult. But the Sword and the Shield traces the evolution of both men as Malcomb gravitates towards politics while King moves towards radical actions (opposing Vietnam, supporting sanitation workers, and the poor. Either way to the US government both men were dangerous radicals. The most revealing sections of the Sword and The Shield may be the ones that reveal the contradictions in both men. Such as the great sections at the beginning where Malcom X searches from the uniqueness of black identity considered alongside his later political pursuits. Martin Luther King meanwhile had relationships with the Kennedy Brothers and LBJ that seemed to wax and wane with whether he was viewed as a mainstream figure—winning the Nobel Prize or was considered a radical such as protesting Vietnam or rallying for better treatment of the poor and sanitation workers. The Sword and Shield does a fantastic job of illustrating how these two men can be seen as both radical and mainstream at the same time and the contradictions that existed within both men.

A wonderful addition to the volumes currently in existence, as well as those still to come, within the history genre. The Civil Rights Era spanned for decades and still exists in the modern world, just as a new chapter, but Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X are two of the most well-known individuals within this topic. The Sword and the Shield looks at the lives of both men and their work within some of the most adversarial decades of the twentieth century for African American civil rights. While I was more familiar with Dr. King’s life and legacy than of the life of Malcolm X, I learned more about how the two men complemented each other during the fight for civil rights and how their respective methods impacted the culture of the United States of America. I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for writing "The Sword and The Shield". We just read and discussed it in our book group. Thank you for your incredible dedication in writing this book covering two very important Americans – Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Thank you for your historical research that provided context to every year and decade discussed. Thank you for researching to provide background on so many who influenced Malcolm and Martin through their philosophical development and transformations. Thank you for explaining much of the Civil Rights context during the entire 20th century. Thank you for clarifying the convergence of these men’s stories that influenced civil and human rights to all Americans and all around the world. Your words make the influence and philosophical convergence of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King during this important period so very clear. While in college I took many Afro-Am courses. I learned about many influential Civil Rights activists and organizations. Your book puts many chronological pieces together and then provides an enlightened perspective on the convergence of Malcolm and Martin. I greatly appreciate this incredibly well researched and written book. Your book should be a part of every U.S. high school and college American History course! Our entire book group has been positively influenced by your book. Thankfully, your book provided missing information about Malcolm, Martin and their selfless courage during this tenuous period. I agree with the statement that "this dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders." For all of this I am extremely grateful.

Whew! Best book I’ve read to understand the trajectory and high points of the Modern Civil Rights Movement of the 50’s and 60’s, and I’ve read a lot! But I found an error. The National Cathedralin Washington DC is related to the Episcopal Church, not the Catholic Church, so unless something very weird happened, the crowd of white people listening to Dr. King’s Passion Sunday service a few days before his assassination, were primarily Episcopalian, not primarily Catholic. Please correct me if I’m wrong. This factoid on p 298 is the first one I have noticed in the whole book so far. Not bad, Professor Joseph. My hat is off to you!

Two men, From different backgrounds and seemingly different tactics, have one common goal; and that is to liberate African Americans from segregation and Jim Crow laws. This book tackles the civil rights era of Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Not much of their personal lives, but their beginnings in the movement until their untimely assassinations. This was a very well researched and well written book. I Received a copy of this book via netgalley and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

This book is outstanding. It truly brings together how the lives of two great civil rights leaders crossed paths and influenced each of their missions. I had read biographies of both Martin Luther King and Malcom X but had never really brought both lives together. Anyone interested in the civil rights movement will find this book enlightening. It will also make you wonder why we haven't come farther.

Deeply introspective, captivating, and relevant. Written with the oratory craftsmanship and emotional sincerity of the two subjects themselves. Joseph brilliantly details and precisely weaves the interconnecting relevance of the otherwise seemingly disparate journeys Malcolm X and Dr. King. What shaped these men and their causes from birth? How similar were the causes, the fellowships, the approaches? Where were the overlaps and commonalities, and how well did the two know and support the other. What were their relationships with political, religious, law enforcement, and within their own communities. Where the methods effective, and if yes, what made them so? What now? For me, many misconceptions were directly addressed and clarified about their historical paths; yet many questions about the impact on 2020 and beyond surfaced. This book was greatly entertaining, yes, but for me even more so engaging.

This is an impressive work that will be beneficial to those that know very little and those that feel well versed in the 60s Civil Rights movement. An extremely insightful view and analysis of two towering figures in American History, whose impact and persona have been somewhat relegated to overly simplistic interpretations that have miss the mark over time. The author's scholarship on the topic is beyond reproach. He clearly has spent an enormous amount of time researching and finding first hand information to inform his writing. This should be a standard text book in classrooms a cross the nation both K12 and collegiate. I for one will read every future book he writes -- I have a sense that he has more to say!! Just a really brilliant book!