The family of civil rights leader Malcolm X has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the New York Police Department (NYPD) for the role these agencies allegedly played in his death.
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The lawsuit accuses these agencies of playing an active role in the assassination of the civil rights leader and engaging in a decades-long cover-up to conceal their involvement. The lawsuit was filed by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump on behalf of X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and his estate.
“This cover-up spanned decades, blocking the Shabazz family’s access to the truth and their right to pursue justice,” Crump said in a statement. “We are making history by standing here to confront those wrongs and seeking accountability in the courts.”
The family alleges that the agencies were aware of credible threats against Malcolm X’s life, but refused to intervene. The lawsuit portrays their actions as part of a wider conspiracy directed by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. These agencies not only neglected their duty to investigate the matter but also created the conditions that led to the assassination, the complaint states.
“We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century,” Crump said at a press conference.
The lawsuit points to a series of failures on the part of law enforcement, including the removal of security personnel from the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was murdered on February 21, 1965. It also contends that federal and local agents arrested members of the civil rights leader’s security team just days before the assassination and discouraged X from obtaining permits for a firearm, according to The Hill .
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That same year, a letter written by a former NYPD officer alleged the NYPD and FBI covered up details of the assassination.
The officer, Raymond Wood, wrote that he was ordered to coerce members of Malcolm X’s security team to commit felonious federal crimes “so that they could be arrested by the FBI and kept away from managing Malcolm X’s door security on Feb. 21, 1965.”
The complaint states that the agencies involved “went beyond mere allegedly illegal surveillance, actively conspiring to reduce his protection and leaving him vulnerable to an attack they knew was imminent.”
In a letter that was written in 2011, but revealed in 2021, Wood claimed he was coerced into assisting the FBI and NYPD in getting members of the security team to commit federal crimes to justify their arrest. The complaint says undercover agents were present in the ballroom during the assassination and failed to intervene.
“This lawsuit represents our enduring fight to uncover the truth and preserve my father’s legacy,” said Ilyasah Shabazz, who was two years old when she witnessed her father’s murder.
Malcolm X was a prominent Black leader and a key figure in the Nation of Islam during the early 1960s. He advocated for Black pride and nationalism and emphasized self-determination and empowerment for Black Americans rather than relying on integration to move African Americans forward.
The civil rights leader was known for his militant approach to achieving progress for Black Americans. He preached the value of self-defense and believed that Black folks should be willing to protect themselves with firearms.
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He initially supported racial separation and rejected the notion that White Americans could play a role in the fight for civil rights. He later moderated his views after his experience traveling to the Middle East and Africa and after he cut ties with the Nation of Islam. His philosophy evolved to focus on advocacy for human rights on a global scale.
The civil rights leader was assassinated by multiple individuals tied to the Nation of Islam. Three of these individuals were convicted of the murder, but two of them were later exonerated in 2021 after it was revealed that the authorities withheld evidence and engaged in other questionable practices.