By: John Perazzo
In light of the information presented in a new Netflix documentary researched and presented by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a Washington-based tour guide and independent scholar who is an expert on the life and death of the late Malcolm X, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has opened a review of the 1965 murder of the renowned black Muslim orator. Titled Who Killed Malcolm X?, the six-part series claims that only one of the three men who were arrested and incarcerated for Malcolm’s murder was actually involved in the crime. Hoping to clear the name of the lone surviving man whose conviction was allegedly unjustified, Mr. Muhammad has submitted a petition asking the DA to re-examine the case.
The final moments of Malcolm X’s life were spent in the Audubon Ballroom in northern Manhattan, where, at a few minutes past 3 p.m. on February 21, 1965, he was commencing a meeting of his newly formed Organization of Afro-American Unity. Moments after Malcolm stepped to the podium that afternoon, someone near the back of the audience could be heard shouting, “Get your hand out of my pocket!” Malcolm urged the individuals involved in the scuffle to “be cool,” and as his bodyguards moved to intervene, a man who was seated closer to the front of the ballroom stood up, drew a sawed-off shotgun from beneath his overcoat, and fired multiple rounds into Malcolm’s body, killing him almost instantly. It is known that at least two – and possibly as many as four – additional conspirators were also involved.
Malcolm X had been a major figure in the Nation of Islam (NOI) since the early 1950s. Rejecting Martin Luther King’s vision of a peaceful path to racial integration, Malcolm openly defended the use of violence as a means of black liberation: “You don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.” In March 1964 he warned: “There will be more violence than ever this year. White people will be shocked when they discover that the passive little Negro they had known turns out to be a roaring lion. The whites had better understand this while there is still time. The Negroes at the mass level are ready to act.” Maintaining also that “the white man is a devil,” Malcolm dutifully promoted the NOI doctrine which held that history would eventually culminate in a racial Armageddon where whites would be exterminated by a deadly “mother ship” equipped with hundreds of “baby planes” laden with powerful explosives.
Notably, Malcolm’s racist rhetoric was good for attendance, helping to swell NOI’s membership rolls from a mere 400 people in 1952, to approximately 40,000 by 1960. Throughout this period, Malcolm spoke reverently about NOI’s longtime leader, Elijah Muhammad, characterizing him as “the greatest and wisest and most fearless black man in America today.”
By 1963, however, Malcolm had begun to perceive that Elijah Muhammad was, as the Netflix documentary puts it, using NOI as his own “personal cash cow” – raking in massive donations on which he paid no taxes because of NOI’s exemption as a religious organization. Gradually, Malcolm grew to view his mentor – now a mega-millionaire who owned multiple homes and businesses – as someone who was more preoccupied with acquiring earthly treasures than with abiding by the tenets of his faith.
The relationship between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad suffered another major setback on December 1, 1963 – just a few days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – when Malcolm disobeyed Elijah Muhammad’s explicit directive that he avoid saying anything about Kennedy’s death that might unnecessarily alienate the U.S. public. Instead, Malcolm took the occasion to characterize JFK’s killing as an instance of America’s “chickens coming home to roost” – an event that made him very “glad.”
At that point, an angry Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm from speaking publicly on behalf of the Nation of Islam. Moreover, the Nation of Islam, which owned the home where Malcolm and his family were living, tried to evict him along with his wife and children. Embittered like never before, Malcolm now detested the man whom he had once regarded as his mentor, guide, and spiritual advisor.
On March 8, 1964, Malcolm announced that he was leaving NOI. Soon thereafter, he established a new “Muslim Mosque Incorporated” in New York City and founded the aforementioned Organization of Afro-American Unity.
Determined to exact revenge on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm publicly humiliated his former mentor by publicizing embarrassing secrets about the latter’s private life. As the Netflix documentary shows, Malcolm went before television cameras and announced to the press: “Elijah Muhammad, the head of the movement, is the father of eight children by six different teenage girls who were his private personal secretaries.” One of those girls, Malcolm added, was pregnant at that time with a ninth child sired by Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm continued to disparage Elijah Muhammad and his associates at every opportunity thereafter. The documentary shows, for example, video clips where Malcolm smears NOI leaders as “the hierarchy who are living off the fatted calf”; where he describes Elijah Muhammad as a “senile” old man who “doesn’t love black people” and “doesn’t even love his own followers”; and where he portrays Elijah Muhammad’s grown children as reprobates who lust for “nothing but luxury” and “power.”
Malcolm’s public denunciations of Elijah Muhammad caused many devoted disciples of the NOI kingpin to become enraged at Malcolm for his disloyalty. Historian David Garrow – once a “very active” member of the Democratic Socialists of America who makes numerous appearances in the Netflix documentary — says: “The real threat to Elijah Muhammad and the Nation was that as soon as Malcolm had an independent pedestal, position, stature, people all across black America would flock to Malcolm’s banner and abandon Elijah and the Nation.”
By 1965 the hostility between Malcolm and his former NOI brethren was so intense, that Malcolm fully expected to be killed on orders of Elijah Muhammad in the very near future. “I do believe there will be attempts on my life,” we hear Malcolm declare in the Netflix film. “I know them [NOI]. They are foaming at the mouth.” In another video clip, he states: “Elijah Muhammad has given the order to his followers to see that I am crippled or killed.” And in yet another clip, Malcolm recounts how Elijah Muhammad’s son had recently come to New York and told NOI’s paramilitary wing, the Fruit of Islam, “that my tongue should have been put in an envelope and sent back to Chicago by now.”
One of the most noteworthy voices calling for Malcolm’s murder was that of Louis Farrakhan, whom Malcolm had recruited into NOI in the 1950s. Enraged by Malcolm’s disloyalty to Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan wrote ominously: “The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil foolish talk about his benefactor, Elijah Muhammad. Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death.” This, however, is not mentioned in the Netflix documentary.
At one point, the documentary shows us the transcript of an FBI wiretap of an Elijah Muhammad phone call that reads as follows: “Elijah said the only way to stop him [Malcolm] was to get rid of him the way Moses and the others did their bad ones” – i.e., by putting Malcolm to death, as Moses had effectuated the death of idolators in ancient times. Another portion of the same transcript quotes Elijah Muhammad saying that the best way to deal with “hypocrites” like Malcolm would be to “cut their heads off.”
Also appearing in the Netflix documentary is former NOI member Q. Amin Nathari, who is shown saying: “It was inevitable that he [Malcolm] would be killed, whether it was gonna be a [NOI] crew out of Philadelphia, or a crew out of New York, or a crew out of any other city that had that type of zeal and love for Elijah Muhammad.” And David Garrow concurs: “For months preceding the assassination, the resentment that the top leadership of the Nation of Islam had towards Malcolm was explicitly broadcast. The signals, the public signals, were visible to anyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention.”
But while Who Killed Malcolm X? acknowledges that the undeniable animosity between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad was profound and deeply rooted, the documentary nonetheless blames the FBI for fomenting much of that discord. The film notes, for instance, that the Bureau had infiltrated NOI with three “top level” informants, and it displays a 1962 FBI document that reads: “Elijah Muhammad is engaging in extramarital activities with at least five female members of the Nation of Islam. This information indicated Elijah Muhammad has fathered some children by these women…. These paradoxes in the character of Elijah Muhammad make him extremely vulnerable to criticism by his followers.” This document causes David Garrow to say: “The Bureau is aiming to publicly embarrass Elijah Muhammad. That’s a classic Bureau tactic.” Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, for his part, puts it this way: “The FBI was determined to use more counterintelligence techniques to create more distance and schisms between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad.”
Who Actually Killed Malcolm X?
After Malcolm X was shot and killed in the Audubon Ballroom on the afternoon of February 21, 1965, three NOI members were arrested for the crime. One of the three was 24-year-old Talmadge Hayer (who would later change his name to Mujahid Abdul Halim), who was caught by police at the scene of the murder, with a handgun ammunition clip in his pocket. Hayer was a member of NOI Mosque #25 in Newark, New Jersey.
The other two suspects were not caught at the scene of the crime but were arrested soon afterward. One was a 26-year-old man known as Norman 3X Butler, who would later take the name Muhammad Abdul Aziz and is currently 81 years old. The other was a young man known as Thomas 15X Johnson, who would later change his name to Khalil Islam, and who died in 2009.
Both Butler and Johnson were members of NOI Mosque #7 in Harlem, New York. They became prime suspects in the killing of Malcolm because they both had significant criminal histories and were known to be vocal enemies of the former NOI spokesman. But at the murder trial in early 1966, Hayer, who confessed to being part of the assassination plot, testified that neither Butler nor Johnson had taken part in the crime. Rather, said Hayer, four other accomplices had assisted him. He refused to name any of them, however.
Butler and Johnson, meanwhile, both denied involvement in Malcolm’s death, and the Netflix film tells us that both men provided alibis in the form of people who testified to having seen them, or to having spoken with them, at the exact time of the killing in the Audubon Ballroom. But we have no way of knowing how reliable those witnesses were. Moreover, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad tells us that “Butler even had a doctor who testified that he saw him that morning for injuries on his leg that Butler said made it near impossible for him to walk around freely.” But Mr. Muhammad’s claim is untrue. During the trial in early 1966, Butler’s physician testified that he did not see Butler until February 25 – four days after the murder, and one day before Butler’s arrest.
Also part of Johnson and Butler’s defense was their contention that because they were well known to be enemies of Malcolm X, NOI security personnel would have made it impossible for them to gain admittance into the ballroom.
Both Butler and Johnson were members of NOI’s Fruit of Islam contingent. The Netflix movie does not give viewers any sense of just how violent the Fruit of Islam was. Consider, for instance, what Johnson – who, at the time of Malcolm X’s killing, had another gun-crime charge pending against him — said in a 2007 interview with New York magazine: “We all were in the Fruit of Islam, which was nothing but a paramilitary unit. If someone pulled off a Muslim’s bow tie, or ripped up the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, we reacted. Tell us to go kick a guy’s spleen out, we were on him with all four feet. We were martial artists, but we weren’t training to become black belts: We were training to kill black belts. You didn’t want to see us coming.”
Nor does the Netflix film mention that Johnson himself was admittedly very much in favor of killing Malcolm, as he noted in the same 2007 interview: “If we caught someone smoking a cigarette in the mosque, we’d throw them down the stairs headfirst. You didn’t break the rules. Malcolm knew that. So what did he expect, saying those things about Elijah Muhammad? That was one of the first tenets of the religion: You don’t criticize the leader, for sure you don’t do it to white people. The truth is, I thought the man was worthy of death.”
Why would a documentary seeking to uncover the truth about Malcolm’s murder, leave out such a significant quote by one of the men convicted of that murder?
The Netflix series also turns a blind eye to the devastating evidence brought forth by Karl Evanzz, author of the 1992 book The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X, who explains that in the 1966 trial, “numerous eyewitnesses identified Norman Butler as the person they saw firing a gun at Malcolm X.” Evanzz writes that Hagan and Butler in particular “look[ed] like imbeciles” when testifying in court, as they essentially “convicted themselves” by way of their own “numerous lies,” “misstatements,” and “half-truths” which were exposed during cross-examination.
Moreover, Evanzz has publicly posted still-frame photographs from video footage of the scene outside the Audubon Ballroom just after the killing of Malcolm X. These photos show a man whom Evanzz identifies as Norman Butler, trying to view Malcolm’s body as it is being carried away by authorities. In the photos, Butler is wearing the same distinctive tweed suit and fedora hat that he been wearing a few weeks earlier when he and Johnson were arrested for shooting and wounding a fellow NOI member in a dispute. In short, says Evanzz, these pictures provide “positive proof that Butler was not at home with an injured leg at the time of the assassination.”
It is curious that a documentary on Malcolm’s death would not even try to address evidence like this.
In early 1966, Hayer, Butler, and Johnson were all convicted of Malcolm X’s murder. Each was sentenced to life in prison, but none of them actually served a full life sentence. Hayer, for his part, was jailed from 1966-88, after which he was relegated to a work-release program that allowed him to spend only two days per week in a minimum-security facility until his parole in April 2010. Butler, meanwhile, served nearly 20 years and was paroled in 1985. And Johnson served 22 years until his parole in 1988, twenty-one years before he died in 2009.
(Front Page Mag)
(To be continued next week)
