STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Years ago, Les Payne was a New York newspaper columnist. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner, one of the stars of his paper, Newsday. Occasionally, he wrote a column about Malcolm X. But readers may not have realized just how much Les Payne was interested. His daughter Tamara Payne says he reread Malcolm's autobiography every five years.
TAMARA PAYNE: Because Malcolm really spoke clearly and concisely about our history in America and the troubled relationship that Blacks have with whites in America, and Dad understood that.
INSKEEP: In 1990, Les Payne met one of Malcolm's surviving brothers and was surprised to learn he didn't know the full story.
PAYNE: It appealed to his sensibilities as a journalist, and he wanted to tell this story the only way he knew how, which was to use journalism.
INSKEEP: Employing his daughter Tamara as his researcher, Les Payne began interviewing more people, finding documents and writing a book. It took him the rest of his life - 28 years. The book wasn't quite finished when he died in 2018, but his daughter Tamara Payne completed it, and this month it won one of the highest prizes in American writing.
What went through your mind when you realized that this work had won the National Book Award?
PAYNE: I was so happy that my father received the accolades for his life's work and - you know, and that I miss him.
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