In his Wall Street Journal review of The Sword and the Shield, the new book by LBJ Professor Peniel Joseph, Jonathan Eig writes:
"We remember King the pacifist in contrast to Malcolm the provocateur; the man with the dream and the man who decried the black American nightmare. Yet, as Peniel E. Joseph argues in his incisive, smartly written new book, The Sword and the Shield, history has turned both men into caricatures. We've lost sight of King's true radicalism. We've lost sight of Malcolm's more moderate approach to black nationalism that emerged after his break with the Nation of Islam. And, in Mr. Joseph's view, we've lost sight of how each man shaped the other. ...
"King and Malcolm each found it useful to cast the other in the role of adversary, and yet the more they struggled against institutionalized racism and economic inequality, the more they found commonality in their political goals. Mr. Joseph, a history professor at The University of Texas at Austin, weaves their stories fluidly and with vivid detail, helping to strip away the high gloss of mythology."