Release government files on Malcolm X assassination
As the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination nears next month, questions around his killing still linger. That’s why the Department of Justice should heed an online petition to release all the federal files surrounding the civil rights leader’s death. A small group has launched a modest yet compelling grassroots effort to get a fuller picture of the half-century-old case, and its call for full transparency should be honored.
On Feb. 21, 1965, the 39-year-old black former Nation of Islam minister, who had left the group and formed his own religious organization, was gunned down inside the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. While three Nation of Islam members were convicted of the murder, speculation around the real motive remains, and some question whether the real assassin is still at large.
Malcolm X and his associates were under frequent FBI surveillance at the time, and the files could help provide a fuller account of the assassination. Releasing all federal records would presumably shed a light on the government’s role, as well. “Did federal government intelligence agencies play any roles of omission or commission? We’d like to have more evidence to know that definitively. It is high time we get all the information available,” says Peniel Joseph, professor of history at Tufts University and founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. “It would be important to understand and not to repeat that kind of unconstitutional surveillance state that was happening around that time.”