When Malcolm X was assassinated in front of hundreds of people during a speaking event in 1965, the perpetrators were apprehended quickly — but the story doesn't end there.
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City’s Washington Heights. As he was getting ready to go on stage and deliver a speech, three men forced their way through the crowd, rushed the stage, and shot him multiple times. He was rushed to the hospital but, unfortunately, succumbed to his wounds shortly afterward.
It wasn’t exactly a secret why Malcolm X was killed. He was one of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement, but his vision for the movement was different from that of some of his contemporaries – particularly the peaceful, unifying message of Martin Luther King Jr.
Whereas King approached civil rights from an integrationist, non-violent perspective, Malcolm X approached the movement as a Black nationalist, with a belief that Black people should secure their freedom and equality “by whatever means necessary.”
Although both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X would ultimately be killed because of their views and influence, with King assassinated three years later in 1968, the circumstances surrounding their deaths could not be more different.
Malcolm X’s message naturally resonated with many, but it also garnered him plenty of enemies – both Black and white.
King himself referred to Malcolm X’s rhetoric as “fiery, demagogic oratory” that encouraged people to “arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence,” language which he felt “can reap nothing but grief.” Malcolm X publicly made statements that celebrated the deaths of white people – and even prayed that God would offer similar “blessings” in the future.
Wikimedia CommonsBullet holes behind where Malcolm X had been speaking at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom.
His statements may have been seen as inflammatory, but to many it felt like a natural response to the decades – centuries, really – of violent, systemic oppression that Black Americans had faced. His message reflected a profound distrust in a system that had, for so long, failed to protect people like him, let alone empower them.
King felt that if people came together, they could change the system; Malcolm X felt that a revolution was in order – not to change the system, but to dismantle it.
To some, this was a terrifying idea, especially when the movement was being led by a Black Muslim man. Moreover, his split from the Nation of Islam and subsequent formation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity had turned even his former allies into enemies.
Where Malcolm X had once viewed the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, as something of a mentor, both Muhammad’s extramarital affairs as well as the sharp ideological differences between the two eventually caused a deep rift to form between them – one that proved to have deadly consequences.
All of this came to a head on that fateful day in February 1965, with his family, including his young daughter Qubilah Shabazz in attendance. After the shots were fired, the crowd at the Audubon Ballroom turned on Malcolm X’s assailants, relentlessly attacking them until police arrived and took them into custody.
Three men were convicted of the killing – all of them members of the Nation of Islam: Talmadge Hayer, also known as Thomas Hagan, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson. However, Hayer always maintained that Butler and Johnson were innocent, and recent updates in the investigation only make it more difficult to answer the question: Who killed Malcolm X?
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