The family of Malcolm X released a letter on Saturday allegedly written by a police officer who has now died, claiming that the New York Police Department and the FBI were behind the 1965 assassination of the Black Civil Rights leader.
Why it matters: Scholars and civil rights advocates have long said men charged with the murder of Malcolm X, later known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, in the Audubon Ballroom in New York. was wrongly convicted. Some claimed that police and federal agents played a role in his death.
Send the news: The family released the letter attributed to Raymond Wood, a former NYPD officer, who confessed before the death that the NYPD and FBI conspired in the assassination.
- Wood wrote that he was ordered to see that Malcolm X would have no door security in the Harlem building where he would speak.
- Daughters of Malcolm X have revealed the details of the letter at the former site of their father’s assassination, saying they waited until Wood’s death to speak out for fear of retaliation from authorities.
- “Ilyasah Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters, thoroughly investigated at the press conference any evidence that provides greater insight into the truth behind the horrific tragedy.”
Flash back: Muhammad Aziz, Mujahid Abdul Halim and Khalil Islam were convicted of the murder of the civil rights leader and sentenced to life in prison.
- Aziz and Islam have denied any involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Malcolm X. Halim said the two were not involved.
- Malcolm X was assassinated after he publicly broke up with the leader of the Nation of Islam Elijah Muhammad and while the FBI was watching him closely.
Between the lines: District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office, Cyrus Vance, announced last year that his office would reconsider the assassination attempt in 1965 following the release of a Netflix series questioning the investigation into Malcolm X’s death.
NYPD said in a statement that it ‘provided all available records relevant to the case to the district attorney’.
- “The department is still committed to assisting with the investigation in any way.”
- The FBI declined to comment.
The whole picture: Malcolm X sees renewed interest amid the Black Lives Matter movement and calls on advocates to diversify the history of school history to tackle systemic racism.
- “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X”, written by the late journalist Les Payne, and his daughter, Tamara, has won the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
- The book shows how Malcolm X’s intellectual development as a black nationalist stems in part from his preaching father and his multilingual mother, who worked as a journalist.
- The book also exposed Malcolm X’s experience of visiting a school with white students where he became popular and how he learned to grow better marijuana from Mexican immigrants in Michigan.