Tamara Payne, daughter of Les Payne, to talk about Malcolm X bio in Roosevelt

Tamara Payne, the daughter of former Newsday journalist Les Payne, is coming to Roosevelt Public Library on Thursday to talk about "The Dead Are Arising," her father's biography of Malcolm X that she completed after his death.

The event is part of the library's "Everything Black: Gonna Be All WRITE" forum, which has been taking place Thursdays in February as part of Black History Month. Previous speakers have included Javaka Steptoe, author and illustrator of the children's picture book "Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat" and journalist Constance C.R. White ("How to Slay: Inspiration from the Queens and Kings of Black Style").

Les Payne worked on "The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X" for more than 30 years up until his death at age 76 in 2018. He conducted interviews with numerous sources who knew the civil rights leader, including relatives, classmates, friends, Nation of Islam figures, FBI agents and others. One of the book's most revealing episodes concerns a clandestine meeting between Malcolm X and members of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan in 1961 that led to his break from the Nation of Islam.

Tamara Payne served as researcher on the project. The book was published in October 2020 and won the Pulitzer Prize for biography the following June. In addition, "The Dead Are Arising" received the National Book Award for nonfiction and was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2020 by The New York Times Book Review.

The event will start at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the library at 27 W. Fulton Ave. in Roosevelt. Though it's free, registration is required. To sign up, go to rooseveltlibrary.org/everything-black.