On this day, 21 February 1965, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, instrumental speaker and activist of the US civil rights and Black power movements, was assassinated while preparing to address a crowd of supporters in New York.
Formerly a member of the Nation of Islam (NoI), Malcolm X publicly split with the organisation due to issues such as NoI leader Elijah Mohammed failing to approve action to respond to police attacks on Black Muslims in Los Angeles. Instead he founded his own mosque, as well as the secular Organization of Afro-American Unity. Already a target of both the police and FBI, NoI activist Louis Farrakhan also declared Malcolm to be “worthy of death”.
On February 21, Malcolm stepped up to speak at the Audubon ballroom when he was shot. Mujahid Abdul Halim, a NoI member from New Jersey was apprehended fleeing the scene with a clip from one of the murder weapons, and admitted his participation in the killing. However, two other Black Muslims from the Harlem mosque were subsequently arrested and convicted of the crime: Khalil Islam and Muhamad Abdul Abdulaziz. This was despite a lack of evidence and the fact that they, and Halim, protested their innocence. In an effort to win the freedom for Islam and Aziz, Halim even filed affidavits naming his four co-conspirators – all from the New Jersey mosque. But prosecutors repeatedly refused to reopen the case.
A posthumous letter attributed to a former undercover New York police officer has just been released by his family, claiming that, at the direction of his bosses, he provoked two of Malcolm X’s security guards into committing crimes shortly before the assassination so that they could be arrested and would be unavailable to protect him at the Audubon.
After the case gained new attention following the 2020 release of a Netflix documentary series on the murder, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr agreed to review the case, which is currently ongoing. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1657116831140127/?type=3