A bust sculpture of Malcolm X was unveiled during his May 2024 induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. The art was designed by Lincoln artist Nathan Murray, shown here with Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz (right of the bust) and JoAnna LeFlore-Ejike, executive director of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation. The bust’s permanent spot is in a hallway of the State Capitol, with other Hall of Fame busts. (Photo by Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)
OMAHA, Nebraska — The family of Malcolm X filed a $100 million lawsuit Friday that accuses multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies of playing a role in the murder of the human rights leader nearly 60 years ago.
With Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz at his side, nationally known civil rights attorney Ben Crump of Tallahassee said the family’s legal team has been busy “unearthing” new evidence since the exoneration in 2021 of two of the three men convicted in Malcolm X’s killing.
“We are not just making history, but we’re making a path for justice,” Crump said at a news conference live streamed from New York. “We believe, a precedent-setting path for justice for those who have been denied justice by the American legal system for far too long.”
85-page lawsuit
The 85-page lawsuit details nine causes of action against the Department of Justice, FBI, CIA and New York Police Department. Announced earlier, the case was filed on Friday in a U.S. District Court of New York.
The Crump-led legal team alleges the government agencies, after playing a “significant role” in events leading to Malcolm X’s assassination, engaged in a decades-long coverup to shield their involvement.
The agencies named as defendants either declined to comment or did not respond to a reporter’s request for a response.
Malcolm X supporters in Nebraska — where a long and bumpy road preceded his induction this year into his home state’s Hall of Fame — said they appreciated the dogged pursuit for justice.
State Sen. Terrell McKinney, who led this year’s effort to honor Malcolm X with a state recognition day, said he hoped that recent events shed more attention on contributions of the oft-misunderstood vocal advocate for Black empowerment.
“The perception of Malcolm X, I feel, is shifting, which is good,” said the lawmaker who represents the North Omaha district where the icon was born. “The more things that highlight who he was and what actually happened bring more light and support for the things he was fighting for, and the strides that still need to be made.”
Now, nearly a century since his birth in 1925 as Malcolm Little, plans are underway in Omaha to expand a memorial at his birthplace memorial site. A $20 million state grant awarded earlier this year jump-started the fundraising for a museum and cultural education center at the 18-acre property near 35th and Pinkney Streets.
JoAnna LeFlore-Ejike of Omaha, executive director of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, has helped lead other local efforts to draw attention to Malcolm X and his work. She recently spoke alongside Ilyasah Shabazz when an artist’s Malcolm X bust was unveiled for placement in the Hall of Fame in the State Capitol.
Friday, LeFlore-Ejike said the foundation “fully supports the Shabazz family in their quest for justice and an accurate historical account of Brother Malcolm’s life and his tragic assassination.”
Feb. 21, 1965
Malcolm X was 39 years old when he was shot 21 times by multiple gunmen as he was about to give a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York on Feb 21, 1965. His wife, Betty Shabazz, and three older children, including Ilyasah, were there at the time.
Ilyasah told reporters Friday that she was grateful on behalf of her five sisters to stand with a legal team aiming to correct history.
A photograph displayed at the event showed her mom, pregnant with twins at the time, trying to help her husband as he lay on the ground.
Ilyasah reflected on how her mom, who had survived a firebomb at their house a week earlier, had attempted to save Malcolm X with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She remarked how her mother later turned the ballroom site into the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center — “a place of triumph … to carry his work forward.”
According to the legal complaint, the federal agencies and the New York police department were aware of threats to Malcolm X’s life and failed to intervene. It contends that the entities, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, then-FBI head, conspired to reduce his protection and left him open to an attack that the legal team asserts the agency knew was imminent.
Crump said that for decades, the FBI and its leaders viewed Black activism as a threat to national security.
The lawsuit says that Hoover in 1956 codified a secret, nationwide program known as the Counterintelligence Program, or Cointelpro, which labeled prominent Black activists as extremists and targeted leaders such as Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., members of the Black Panther Party, and others.
A news release said the Malcolm X family and the legal team seek “accountability for the systemic negligence and intentional actions that deprived Malcolm X’s family and the world of his life and legacy.”
Crump said his team, which seeks a jury trial, will lay out how the FBI and CIA collaborated with undercover agents within the Nation of Islam. The team alleged in the lawsuit that despite knowing the threats at hand, law enforcement arrested key security guards days before Malcolm X was killed, reducing his protection.
The security guards have come forth with statements that they were drawn away, said Crump, to make Malcolm X an easier target.
He said his team also has learned that federal agents, including undercover operatives, were in the ballroom during the assassination and did not intervene.
In the lawsuit, Malcolm X is described as one of the greatest Black liberation leaders and public intellectuals of his generation: a minister, teacher, human rights activist, founding member of the Organization of Afro-American Unity and Muslim Mosque, who “fought against racism, colonialism, and oppression, and advocated for Black people to engage in self-determination.”
Crump spoke with several other prominent civil rights lawyers who are members of the legal team, including Shabazz family attorney Ray Hamlin.
Hamlin said the family’s battle for justice has been going on for decades and is bolstered by new information shaken loose recently, and since two of the three men convicted for Malcolm X’s death were exonerated three years ago.
Law enforcement investigators, during the renewed probe led by then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., had found shaky evidence and that authorities withheld information. The exonerated men later received a reported $36 million settlement from the city and state of New York.
“We will ensure that his message lives on,” Hamlin said of Malcolm X, “and that he will not be silenced.”