On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X woke up alone in a suite at the Hilton Hotel in New York City.He was, in the most literal sense, a guy without a home. The week before, someone had set fire to his house in the East Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in the middle of the night. His wife, Betty Shabazz, and his four small children were all well, but for their own protection, they were currently residing with friends in a secret location.Malcolm was sure that his old coworkers from the Nation of Islam (NOI), led by Elijah Muhammad, were responsible for the firebombing.
He used to be the second most influential person in the religious and political movement, but now he had to watch out for the militant Muhammad loyalists who might easily kill him.He told reporters at the time, "I live like a man who is already dead."After Malcolm X spoke what he did regarding President Kennedy's death, he quit the Nation of Islam.During his time in jail for theft in the late 1940s, the Nation of Islam helped Malcolm Little, who was still known as Malcolm Little, by focusing on Black empowerment.
After getting out of prison in 1952, the former street hustler took on more and more prominent duties under Muhammad's wing, first as the minister of Boston Temple No. 11 and later as the minister of Temple No. 7 in New York City.Malcolm X was a tall, frightening person with a sharp mind. His fiery personality made the Nation of Islam an intriguing choice for African Americans who were not convinced by the peaceful protests of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
But he finally fell out with the leaders of the NOI because he told the public about Muhammad's cheating on his wife and because some thought his authority had grown too dangerous. Malcolm X left the movement in March 1964 after Muhammad suspended him for saying that "chickens coming home to roost" in a violent society led to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. His shift toward a more inclusive form of activism and harsh criticism of the NOI only made the conflict between the two sides worse.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X only met once At an Organization of Afro-American Unity gathering, Malcolm X was shot while he was on stage.Malcolm X left his hotel room on a frigid February day, almost a year after leaving the Nation of Islam. He went to the Audubon Ballroom in northern Manhattan for a meeting of his new group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity.In the book Malcolm X: The Assassination, it says that the typically calm campaigner was quite upset that day, maybe because of what had happened recently. He became angry with an aide when he found out the guest speaker had canceled and dispatched his second-in-command, Benjamin 2X, to give the opening comments.Malcolm X came on stage himself soon after 3 p.m., but before he could even say hello, there was a ruckus a few seats back and someone cried, "Get your hand out of my pocket!"As his bodyguards were busy with the fight, Malcolm X told them to "be cool." This gave a guy the chance to pull out a sawed-off shotgun and shoot the exposed speaker in the chest, pushing him back over a pair of chairs.A pregnant Shabazz stood in the front row to protect her four kids as two more guys with guns stormed the stage.
The chaos that followed allowed them a chance to escape, although one of them, 22-year-old Talmadge Hayer, was slowed down a lot after being shot in the leg and beaten up hard by the throng outside. At the same time, Malcolm X was quickly dying from the more than a dozen gunshots that had been fired into his body. Supporters put him on a stretcher and took him to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center across the street. Attempts to resuscitate his heart failed, and he was proclaimed dead at 3:30 p.m.People are still arguing about who killed Malcolm X.The Nation of Islam said they had nothing to do with the shooting, but police concentrated on NOI suspects and quickly caught Thomas 15X Johnson and Norman 3X Butler. Eyewitnesses reportedly corroborated that they were in the Audubon Ballroom. In March 1966, Hayer, Johnson, and Butler were found guilty of first-degree murder and given sentences of 20 years to life in prison.But this wasn't an easy case to solve because there wasn't much evidence connecting Johnson and Butler to the crime site.
In the winter of 1977-78, Hayer signed an affidavit saying that the individuals who were found guilty during the trial were not guilty and naming four more collaborators. However, a court said there was not enough reason to revisit the case. Johnson and Butler got out of prison on parole the next decade, and Hayer got out in 2010.As time went on, things got more complicated as released records showed how closely the government was watching Malcolm X and how strange it was that there were no police at the Audubon Ballroom on that fatal day. Even when a blogger named the accused main gunman in 2011 and the identity was mentioned again in the well-researched book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention that same year, the FBI refused to look at the material again for further inquiry.Over 50 years later, people still think of Malcolm X and his great enemy, Dr. King. Their words and symbols live on, even if the real circumstances behind their deaths appear to be lost in time.