Malcolm X's Family Sues the CIA, FBI and NYPD Over His Assassination
Family attorney says FBI director Hoover was responsible.
The shadow of suspicion again falls on the government due to the admitted misconduct of the CIA and FBI, which jointly used COINTELPRO-style tactics against African-American leaders in the 1960s.
The family of Malcolm X, the black nationalist spokesman slain in February 1965, wants answers.
“The governmental agencies had factual and exculpatory evidence that they fraudulently concealed from the family of Malcolm X and the men wrongly convicted of crimes surrounding the assassination of Malcolm X,” lawyer Ben Crump said in a statement.
At the press conference, Crump said: “It’s not just about the triggermen. It’s about those who conspired with the triggermen to do this dastardly deed.”
Crump said high-ranking US officials conspired to kill Malcolm X. He repeatedly named J Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who died in 1972.
‘Or Otherwise Neutralize’
Crump’s case is plausible.
Two years after Malcolm X’ assassination, Hoover formalized the FBI’s covert surveillance operation targeting “subversive” civil rights groups and Black leaders, including the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King Jr., Elijah Muhammad, and many others. The objective: to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the radical fight for Black rights — and Black power.”
(The UC Berkeley Library is organizing and publishing the FBI documentation of these repressive measures.)
Two men, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and the late Khalil Islam, were prosecuted for the murder of Malcolm X. They were exonerated last year, after an investigation found that the prosecution withheld key evidence that proved the men did not commit the murder.
Crump cited the 2021 exonerations and said that government agencies including the Manhattan district attorney, the NYPD and the FBI “had factual evidence, exculpatory evidence that they fraudulently concealed from the men who were wrongfully convicted for the assassination of Malcolm X.”
Asked if he believes government agencies conspired to assassinate Malcolm, Crump said, “That is what we are alleging, yes. They infiltrated many civil rights organizations.”
According to NBC News, “Emails seeking comment were sent to the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice and New York City’s legal department. The DOJ and NYPD declined to comment.”
There is a growing consensus in society that Hoover was a badly compromised individual, that he refused to entertain the notion of organized crime as any kind of threat to national security because he had been blackmailed by the Mafia from early on in his career, perhaps because of his homosexuality.
So for Hoover it all apparently became about “communists,” and the Mob got off light with the Feds. By the time of the JFK assassination, the Mafia had formidable power in America, apparently largely thanks to the “G-Man.”
Then there is the narrative of James Jesus Angleton of the CIA possessing compromising material (rumored to be a photo of J Edgar in an embarrassing pose with his live-in deputy Clyde Tolson). If true, this may have turned Hoover into a pliant tool or puppet of Angleton during the Warren Commission investigation.
The Hoover era (nearly half a century) represents a sad chapter in American history. His persecution of MLK and other black civil rights leaders was the product of a warped mind, the fearful making others fearful, one the biggest banes of humanity. Much points to Hoover in the murder of Malcolm X.
The corruption of the FBI and the vigilante nature of the CIA paramilitary groups has brought this country down a horrendous road.
The malignant nature of the Assassinations in the 1960’s stripped the USA of it’s leaders, and silenced voices for growth and change.
The result of these acts leads me to understand that the Intelligence agencies in this country are self serving and don’t act in the general public’s interest but in the interest of the elite.
This disturbing trend continues to this day and contributes to the trauma of the American psyche.
The only remedy I can think of is to release all documents re: the Assassinations and let the public decide going forward.