In the seventh episode, young Charles faces the ongoing racist abuses of prison authorities and then "escapes" as a parolee to the military, where he finds an even more outrageous experience of racism.  Struggling against a system where even black officers are subordinated to white inferiors, Charles pushes back and pays dearly for it.  And, in a twist of fate, Charles becomes the cell mate of one of jazz music's all-time legends, with a not-so-musical outcome.  Finally, Lou gets married and Kenyatta goes to his wedding--but then somewhat suddenly gets married too, and Lou is hardly "over the Moon" about it.

NOTE TO LISTENERS: ALTHOUGH KENYATTA'S NARRATIVE CONTAINS THE USE OF THE "N-WORD" IN THIS SECTION, IT IS NOT REPRODUCED.  INSTEAD, AN APPROPRIATELY OFFENSIVE "BEEP" SOUND SERVES AS THE "N-WORD" MARKER.--LD

In "The Curious & Embattled Life of Charles Kenyatta," historian and biographer, Louis A. DeCaro, Jr., narrates the story of his association and friendship with Charles (37X) Kenyatta, a follower of Malcolm X and prominent personality in Harlem from the 1960s until his death in 2005.   Reminiscing about his decade-long association with this controversial Harlem personality, Lou weaves Kenyatta's own story into the narrative, revealing the life and struggles of an unlikely Harlem leader, a man whose passion for the poor and the disenfranchised was matched by his own quest for leadership and notoriety--a quest filled with twists, turns, and backflips.  Based upon extensive interviews with Kenyatta, the story is juxtaposed against Kenyatta's FBI files and other research.

Louis DeCaro Jr. is a biographer of abolitionist John Brown, but entered his life of scholarship in the late 1980s and early '90s as a student of Malcolm X, and ultimately produced a doctoral dissertation and two books on the Muslim activist, On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X (1995) and Malcolm and the Cross: Christianity, the Nation of Islam, and Malcolm X (1997).

Support the show