On the 100th birthday of Malcolm X, we speak with one of his daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump as they continue to press the U.S. government for answers about his assassination. The iconic Black revolutionary was just 39 years old when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965, in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. In 2023, the family of Malcolm X filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against various government bodies, including the FBI, CIA and NYPD, for concealing evidence of their involvement in the assassination. Now his family is calling for President Trump to release more details about the assassination, just as he released thousands of unredacted files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and vowed in an executive order to release files on the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“When I think of my father most, he was such a young man. He was in his twenties when the world learned of him, 39 when he was assassinated,” says Shabazz.
“We continue to fight for justice for Malcolm X, by any means necessary,” says Crump. “We implore the federal government to release all of the FBI papers on Malcolm X.”