Malcolm X Scholar Manning Marable Dies at 60

Malcolm X Scholar Manning Marable Dies at 60: Dr. Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming Malcolm X biography could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, died Friday, just days before the book described as his life’s work was to be released. He was 60 years old.

His wife, Leith Mullings, said Marable died from complications of pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. She said he had suffered for 24 years from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease, and had undergone a double lung transplant in July.

“I think his legacy is that he was both a scholar and an activist,” she said. “He believed that history could be used to inform the present and the future.”