Three of Malcolm X’s daughters have filed a lawsuit against the FBI, CIA, and the New York Police Department, accusing them of playing a role in the 1965 assassination of the leading Black and civil rights leader and demanding $100m in recompense.
The lawsuit, announced on Friday, was filed by his three daughters and the estate of Malcolm X, and accuses the US government agencies and New York law enforcement of being aware of – and involved in – the plot to kill Malcolm X, and saying they did nothing to stop it.
The family’s lawsuit accuses the prosecution team of suppressing the US government’s role in the assassination.
“Their entire family have suffered the pain of the unknown” for decades, the lawsuit reads.
“They did not know who murdered Malcolm X, why he was murdered, the level of NYPD, FBI and CIA orchestration, the identity of the governmental agents who conspired to ensure his demise, or who fraudulently covered up their role,” the lawsuit says.
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“The damage caused to the Shabazz family is unimaginable, immense, and irreparable.”
In February 2023, one of Malcolm X’s daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, announced that she intended to sue the US government over her father’s murder.
Malcolm X, also known as El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, was born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1946, he was imprisoned for robbery. In prison, he was introduced to the Nation of Islam (NOI), a radical Black Muslim movement, and became influenced by the teachings of its leader, Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm quickly rose to national prominence, becoming known among both white and Black Americans as a fiery speaker who could stand tall and call out white supremacy at a time when the wider movement for Black civil rights was still fighting for traction.
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Within a few years, he had helped put NOI on the map, with the organisation opening up temples nationwide and drawing thousands to join their ranks.
After 12 years of serving as one of NOI’s most prominent figures, Malcolm X left the Nation in 1964 and embraced Sunni Islam.
In April 1964, he embarked on the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. He said the experience transformed his religious, political, and social outlook.
After this, Malcolm’s call for Black empowerment veered into wider critiques of American imperialism and capitalism.
He was assassinated at the age of 39 on 21 February 1965 by three men who opened fire on him while speaking at the Audobon Ballroom in New York City.
Three men were convicted and sentenced for his murder. However, decades later, two of those men were exonerated.
For the more than twenty years that they were in prison, the two men, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, both maintained they did not assassinate the civil rights leader. Talmadge Hayer confessed to the crime in 1966 and was paroled in 2010.
In the mid-1980s, both Aziz and Islam were released from prison. Islam died in 2009.
However, in November 2021, the New York Supreme Court fully cleared their names, saying their convictions were “a failure of justice”.
In 2021, a judge in Manhattan dismissed the men’s convictions after prosecutors said there was new evidence of witness intimidation, which undermined the case against the men.
In 2022, New York City agreed to pay $26m to the two men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the murder. The state of New York agreed to pay an additional $10m in lawsuits filed by them.
