Three daughters of Malcolm X have filed a $100 million lawsuit accusing the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Department and others of playing roles in the 1965 assassination of the civil rights leader.
In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the daughters along with the estate of Malcolm X — claimed that the agencies were not only aware of, but were involved in the assassination plot and failed to stop the killing.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump described the lawsuit, saying he hoped federal and city officials would read it “and learn all the dastardly deeds that were done by their predecessors and try to right these historic wrongs.”
Many questions have lingered over the assassination of Malcolm X who was 39 when we was killed on Feb. 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
Three men were originally convicted of crimes in the death but two of them were exonerated in 2021 after investigators reexamined the case and concluded some evidence was weak and authorities had even held back some information.
In the lawsuit, the family said the prosecution team suppressed the government’s role in the assassination.
The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents,” leading up to the murder of Malcolm X.
According to the lawsuit, the NYPD, coordinating with federal law enforcement agencies, arrested the activist’s security detail days before the assassination and intentionally removed their officers from inside the ballroom where Malcolm X was killed. In addition, the lawsuit claims, federal agencies had personnel, including undercover agents, in the ballroom but failed to protect him.
The lawsuit is only being brought now because the defendants withheld information from the family, including the identities of undercover “informants, agents and provocateurs” and what they knew about the planning that preceded the attack.
Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, the plaintiffs, “and their entire family have suffered the pain of the unknown” for decades, the lawsuit states.
“They did not know who murdered Malcolm X, why he was murdered, the level of NYPD, FBI and CIA orchestration, the identity of the governmental agents who conspired to ensure his demise, or who fraudulently covered-up their role,” it states. “The damage caused to the Shabazz family is unimaginable, immense, and irreparable.”