Black History Month: Malcolm X Assassinated 47 Years Ago Today

Malcolm X was an African American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist.

To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest times for its crimes against black Americans.

His detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, antisemitism, and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history, and in 1998, Time Magazine named “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.

After Malcolm resigned his position in the Nation of Islam and renounced Elijah Muhammad, relations between the two had become increasingly volatile. FBI informants working undercover in the NOI warned officials that Malcolm had been marked for assassination.

“Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth.”

Malcolm X was assassinated during a rally of one of his followers in a ballroom in New York City 47 years ago. The men accused of his murder were believed to have connections to the Nation of Islam, though a formal tie between that group and the assassination was never proven.

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