Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wound in Manhattan, New York City on February21, 1965 at age 39. While preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, Malcolm X was shot multiple times and killed. Three members of the Nation of Islam—Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Thomas Hagan—were charged, tried, and convicted of the murder and given indeterminate life sentences, but in November 2021, Aziz and Islam were exonerated.
Speculation about the assassination and whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or by law enforcement agencies, has persisted for decades after the shooting. The assassination was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming two years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and three years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
Death threats and intimidation from Nation of Islam
Throughout 1964, Malcolm X's conflict with the Nation of Islam (NOI) intensified, and he was repeatedly threatened. Malcolm X fell out with the NOI, and the group's leader Elijah Muhammed, after Malcolm X's provocative remarks about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and also after Malcolm X condemned Muhammed's sexual relationships with several young women. Malcolm X publicly announced his departure from the NOI in March, 1964.
In February, a leader of Temple Number Seven ordered the bombing of MalcolmX's car. In March, Elijah Muhammad told Boston minister LouisX (later known as Louis Farrakhan) that "hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off"; the April10 edition of Muhammad Speaks featured a cartoon depicting MalcolmX's bouncing, severed head.
On June8, FBI surveillance recorded a telephone call in which Betty Shabazz was told that her husband was "as good as dead." Four days later, an FBI informant received a tip that "MalcolmX is going to be bumped off." That same month, the Nation sued to reclaim MalcolmX's residence in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York. His family was ordered to vacate but on February14, 1965the night before a hearing on postponing the evictionthe house was destroyed by fire.
On July9, Muhammad aide John Ali (suspected of being an undercover FBI agent) referred to MalcolmX by saying, "Anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy." In the December4 issue of Muhammad Speaks, LouisX wrote that "such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death."
The September 1964 issue of Ebony dramatized MalcolmX's defiance of these threats by publishing a photograph of him holding an M1 carbine while peering out a window.
On February 18, Malcolm X relayed in an interview that he was a "marked man", referring to his severed ties with the Nation and how it would ultimately be the reason for his demise. He went on to say that, "No one can get out without trouble, and this thing with me will be resolved by death and violence.
On February19, 1965, MalcolmX told interviewer Gordon Parks that the Nation of Islam was actively trying to kill him.
Assassination
On February21, 1965, Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!" As MalcolmX and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun and two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. MalcolmX was pronounced dead at 3:30pm, shortly after arriving at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast.
Les Payne and Tamara Payne, in their Pulitzer Prize winning biography The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, claim that the assassins were members of the Nation of Islam's Newark, New Jersey, mosque: William 25X (also known as William Bradley), who fired the shotgun; Leon Davis; and Talmadge Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan).