Malcolm X's Family to Trump: Release Files on Assassination

Attorney Ben Crump to make request of Trump administration on Friday, 60th anniversary of shooting
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 21, 2025 7:41 AM CST
Family Wants Malcolm X Assassination Files Released
Malcolm X's daughter Ilyasah Shabazz attends a ceremony at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center in New York, on Feb. 21, 2024.   (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is urging the Trump administration to release secret files related to the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, which he claims was a government conspiracy. Crump is representing three of Malcolm X's daughters in a lawsuit claiming the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies failed to respond to known threats against the prominent civil rights leader's life, then worked to cover up the assassination plot. As President Trump has ordered the FBI to declassify files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Crump believes the time is ripe for another reveal, per Axios.

Crump plans to make a public appeal Friday, the 60th anniversary of Malcolm X's shooting death, at the site where he was gunned down in front of his pregnant wife and young children in New York City. Crump will be joined by Malcolm X's family, who in 2021 released a letter from a now-dead police officer indicating the NYPD and FBI were involved. Some scholars and historians have suggested the FBI or Nation of Islam were behind the assassination, while also pointing to evidence that Malcolm X may have been followed by the CIA, per Axios.

Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the killing. However, two were found to have been wrongly convicted in 2021. "It would be good to know what happened, who killed him, why he was killed, and correct our history books, because it's not accurate," Malcom X's daughter Ilyasah Shabazz tells USA Today. "There is a moral and political obligation on behalf of the city of New York and the federal government ... not only to admit to their roles after all these years, but to make reparations," adds civil rights attorney Flint Taylor, who is working with Crump on the lawsuit. (More Malcolm X stories.)

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