A lawsuit filed last week by the family of Malcolm X, on the 58th anniversary of his assassination in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, might clear up the secrecy, lies and misinformation that still shroud the historical record.
Malcolm’s family and the entire nation need and deserve to know the truth, including how complicit the U.S. government and New York Police Department were in his death. Calls for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate have been ignored.
The $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against the NYPD, FBI, CIA and other government agencies seeks redress against not only the men who pulled the trigger, but also the government agencies that conspired to make it happen, or allowed it to.
Like Martin Luther King, who was assassinated in Memphis three years later, also at the age of 39, Malcolm X was under heavy surveillance by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, as he was emerging as an international leader for human rights.
The suit alleges the NYPD, CIA and FBI concealed exculpatory evidence from Malcolm’s family and those convicted of murdering him. Civil Rights Attorney Benjamin Crump, representing the family, said litigation would include depositions from people who have information about the assassination.
Given the heavy infiltration of the Nation of Islam by government agencies and the New York Police Department, it’s almost certain they knew of an emerging plot to assassinate Malcolm, who broke with the Nation of Islam in 1964. (The FBI and NYPD had informants and undercover officers inside the ballroom during the assassination. One NYPD undercover officer was reportedly part of Malcom’s security detail.) Malcolm himself had been predicting his own death for weeks; his home had been firebombed a week before the assassination.
Two of the three men convicted in the assassination were innocent and exonerated in 2021. Muhammad Aziz and the estate of Khalil Islam sued the city and state of New York for wrongful conviction and imprisonment and reached a combined settlement of $36 million.
Ilyasah Shabazz, an educator author, said finding the truth about the circumstances leading to the death of her father was important to not only the family, but also his many followers and admirers, and the “many who looked to him for guidance, for love.” She was in the ballroom, along with her mother, Betty Shabazz, who was pregnant, when Malcolm was shot 17 times shortly after he began speaking.
In truth, it’s important for the entire nation to know how and why a great American leader was cut down, as his influence in this country and around the world continued to widen. Perhaps this lawsuit can find the answers the government has failed to provide.
———
