Later that year,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, co-written with
Alex Haley, is published posthumously.
Kendi writes that it is perhaps the single most important antiracist book in American history. Speaking to a Howard University audience in March 1965,
President Lyndon Johnson makes the surprisingly antiracist observation that it is nonsense to pretend that Black people can suddenly compete freely and fairly with others after having been so severely disadvantaged for so long. Johnson also openly admits that advances in status and opportunity are largely limited to the Black elite, while for poor Black communities, life is getting increasingly difficult. At the same time, he still manages to blame these ongoing issues on both structural inequity
and Black people themselves, specifically citing “the breakdown of the Negro family structure.”