A Real Assessment of Farrakhan's Role in Malcolm's Assassination

I've written often and from multiple angles about the life and contributions of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz aka Malcolm X.  In many of those pieces I've mentioned the role of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the Nation of Islam, the organization Malcolm left in an antagonistic way in 1964.  I'm writing here what I believe makes a further contribution to clearing up this still fire-lit discussion taking place within African communities everywhere about the actual role, if any, Farrakhan played in the scenario that ended up with Malcolm X being killed by 16 bullets on February 21, 1965 in the Audubon Ballroom in his beloved Harlem, New York. 

This piece should serve as my continued contribution on this subject and I strongly encourage any and everyone who takes the actual time to seriously study this important subject to contribute your work and analysis around this question because what the current buzz makes unquestionable is that there are plenty of voices on this issue, but very little concrete analysis being presented.  This issue has contributed to major damage, including death, within the African community for the last 50+ years so the last thing we need is egotistically fueled, bombastic, accusations from people who just have a few books to become automatic experts on this subject. 

From this humble perspective, the most qualified people to write about this Farrakhan/Malcolm issue are not necessarily  the people who believe they were close to Malcolm during that time, although the perspectives of people like Charles 37X Kenyatta, Benjamin 2X, Herman Furguson, and others are obviously important.  Certainly, the views of current members of the Nation of Islam (NOI) on this subject have to be conditioned with caution.  They obviously are going to be motivated to protect their leaders - Elijah Muhammad and Minister Louis Farrakhan (for those NOI laborers and believers who follow him) - because both men represent all that they believe in.  This is certainly understandable, but it cannot serve as the end of any analytical discussion on this subject.  So, again, this piece humbly suggests that really those who engage in the same revolutionary Pan-Africanist politics that we believe (and are ready to demonstrate at any time) represents the pathway that Malcolm was building upon at the time of this death are the best qualified to investigate and provide analysis on this subject.  I say this because we believe the only way one can properly understand what happened is to have a concrete understanding of organizational development, egos, capacity, and challenges peppered with a clear perspective of the activities of the U.S. government to sabotage our organizations.  We believe those who engage in revolutionary Pan-Africanist politics are the best suited to understand and analyze those variables which we believe color in the actual facts behind what really happened with Minister Louis Farrakhan and his speeches and actions during the time period that eventually led to Malcolm being taken from us.

We have to certainly acknowledge the complexity of the contradictions around this issue.  Contradictions that are casually dismissed by many people talking so much about this today.  For some of them, the issue is as simple as Farrakhan sold out Malcolm, the NOI is corrupt, and cult like, and that's it.  The truth is much more challenging.  Whether the critics of the Nation of Islam can be mature enough to admit it or not, the NOI is respected by the masses of African people and there is legitimate reason for this.  They have functioned in a seminal independent fashion within the inner cities of African life within the U.S. since the 1930s.  They have done many things in those almost 90 years, but one of the productive things they've done is make honest attempts to organize our people.  No one raised in African environments in this country hasn't had their life touched at one time or another by the NOI.  And by touched of course we employ dialectics, meaning touched in positive ways, and sometimes not so positive, but we believe, primarily positive ways.  One of those examples is that the NOI had an influence in teaching us how to deconstruct the colonially inspired deification of European people.  During Malcolm's time as a leading minister in the NOI, his long lectures on European people from the way they smelled to how they had "dog like noses" was tonic in demystifying the toxic belief system we had been forced to live by that Europeans were the closest living human beings to God.  Malcolm, and by default every other NOI minister - including Minister Farrakhan - embodied Franz Fanon's basic thesis that in order for us to be free, we had to break the psychological dominance European culture holds over our dignity.  Despite whatever problems people have with the NOI, and some of those problems having plenty of merit, none of us can deny their role in helping us learn, at some level of our developing consciousness, that Europeans are not God.  This understanding is a critical component of our ability to advance our struggle and all of us, whether we admit it or not, have built off of that foundation that the NOI played an undeniable role in helping create.  

On the flip-side, many of us are, and have always been, drawn to the political development of Malcolm X.  As mentioned, some of that stems from his work within the NOI, but lots of it also reflects his developing international and Pan-African consciousness that was best expressed after he left the NOI.  Were it not for those eleven months my own life would be drastically different.  It was those eleven months that cemented Malcolm's connection to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and his influence over them contributed mightily towards taking the struggle beyond just one of our plight in the U.S.  Malcolm in that last year was the bridge that connected me to Africa and he was so many other people's bridge as well.  So, it only makes sense that we would view with suspicion anyone, including Minister Farrakhan, who could have played any type of role in helping silence our surrogate and ideological father - Malcolm X.

So, what role did Farrakhan play in Malcolm's murder?  Many folks want to speculate what Farrakhan knew or what he didn't know.  The argument exists that because of the structure of the NOI, which at least during that time was heavily based on protecting the ministers within the mosques, there will never be a way to tie any NOI minister to any of the nefarious activities that existed - without question - within the NOI in the 60s and 70s.  Still, based on clear evidence, what we know is that Farrakhan was the main minister at the NOI's Boston Mosque 11 (the NOI had a minister rotation system in place where ministers traveled to different mosques) and Fruit of Islam (FOI - the NOI's internal security force) captain Clarence X Gill, a bitter critic of Malcolm - and someone widely suspected of being involved in Malcolm's assassination team - reported to Farrakhan during that time.  At best, this is circumstantial evidence, but Farrakhan's continued relationship with Gill - there are pictures of them together as recently as the 1990s - does a lot to fuel people's suspicion of Farrakhan.

The most substantial evidence against Farrakhan is actually the same thing that has often gotten him into conflict, the things he says.  His comments during the most heated periods of the conflict between Malcolm and the NOI without question did much to pour oil on the fire significantly.  Farrakhan was at least a partial protege of Malcolm's.  He was partially recruited through Malcolm's work (we say partial because unlike the capitalist concept of everything happening based on individual action, we know that everything is collective, including the work to recruit anyone into any organization).  He became minister of the Boston Mosque largely based on Malcolm's recommendation to Eljah Muhammad (after Malcolm was promoted to Mosque 7 in Harlem).  We know that Malcolm continued to mentor Farrakhan up until the time Malcolm split from the NOI.  The close relationship between these two men makes it easy for many people to conclude that Farrakhan's words in that crucial period of time in 1964 after Malcolm's break with the NOI - where Farrakhan called Malcolm a traitor that needed to be dealt with - has made many people believe Farrakhan's role was to encourage the murderers.

This is a very sensitive point.  There really isn't a way to deny that Farrakhan's statements, along with those of Elijah Muhammad Jr., Captain Joseph - the captain under Malcolm in Harlem, National Secretary John Ali (a highly suspected informant for the U.S. government), and other NOI officials, did create the environment where people were encouraged to murder Malcolm under the illusion that they would be carrying out the "will of God."

The transgression above could and would be forgiven by the majority of the African community were it not for Farrakhan's continued, up through current times, insistence on defending his and the NOI's actions during that time.  It would very simple for Farrakhan to just say in public that he and the rest of the NOI's leadership in 1964/65, were clearly manipulated by the U.S. government to set up Malcolm X for murder.  If he were to do this, I believe this controversy would have averted long ago.  Even Maulana Karenga, the founder of the Organization US, formally the US Organization - the group that engaged in multiple U.S. government inspired shootouts with the Black Panther Party in which Panthers were killed - doesn't generate the same level of anger that many of our people hold towards Farrakhan for what he said about Malcolm.  We of course, understand that as great as people like Bunchy Carter and John Huggins were to our struggle, they aren't Malcolm X in people's minds, but at least part of the fact people have looked past Karenga's errors, celebrated Kwanza - his creation - etc, is because he hasn't gloated about the dead Panthers the way Farrakhan has about Malcolm.  Many people are still angry with Farrakhan for his speech in 1993 where he talked about Malcolm being "treated like any nation treats its traitors!"  Karenga, for the most part, has shied away from anything close to that.

Of course we are going to say much of the blame for the tragedy with Malcolm resulted from the lack of political education within the NOI.  Malcolm himself was guilty of helping to create the environment that permitted him to be so easily murdered.  He erred in making his complaints against Elijah Muhammad public.  Clearly, he was under pressure.  Losing his home after all the work he did in the NOI and having everyone in the NOI turn against him forced him to make some very badly calculated mistakes that were based primarily on emotion.  There's no way anyone can argue that taking any disagreements we have within our organizations to the capitalist media is going to do anything to improve our situation and that's exactly what Malcolm erroneously did.  As much as we love Malcolm, we have to acknowledge that this was a terrible blunder that reflected his lack of political sophistication.  Of course, we have the benefit of understanding the U.S.'s role in sabotaging our organizations much better today, but Malcolm was visited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the time of his alleged "suspension."  So, he knew the government was trying to sabotage the NOI.  Then, during his travels throughout Africa he was certainly made aware of the efforts of imperialism to sabotage him.  While he was in Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah's security forces informed Nkrumah that the Central Intelligence Agency was fishing for ways to murder Malcolm.  This was part of the reason Nkrumah offered Malcolm a home in Ghana, but Malcolm didn't accept the offer.  Then, after Malcolm's poisoning in Egypt and the refusal of France to permit him to enter that country just days before he returned to the U.S. and was murdered, Malcolm himself was saying it was the U.S. government, not just the NOI, that was attempting to silence him.  So, Malcolm's desperation at that time, certainly understandable, but needing analysis and assessment, reflected the weakness of our organizations and the lack of political education.  

Clearly, Farrakhan and other NOI leaders acting based on petty ego and more political immaturity, made their contribution.  That lack of political education is further exasperated by Farrakhan's continued adherence to that line as recently as the 2015 Million Man Commemoration where I was present and heard Farrakhan say himself that the NOI was basically faultless in Malcolm's assassination.

The summary here is what we believe Farrakhan is actually guilty of is not putting the interests of our people above himself and his organization.  We are still waiting for him to just let it go.  The NOI was wrong and we all paid for it with Malcolm's death.  Beyond that, there is no evidence that Farrakhan had any concrete connections to the assassination or that he was an informant of any kind to the U.S. government.  So, people need to stop suggesting that unless they can produce anything further.

Finally, the ignorance and amateurish nature of many of these NOI critics walking around today is that they don't understand the strategies behind mass organizing (because the overwhelming majority of them never have and never will belong to any organization).  Simple things that reveal their inexperience, like not understanding why revolutionary organizers would attend the Million Man March.  To an individual with no clear analysis, something like that event is a traitorous act to attend.  To them, attending validates Farrakhan while they completely dismiss the outstanding organizing opportunities an event like that presents.  For those truly interested in organizing our people for change, we don't just see Farrakhan at the Million Man March.  We see Kwame Ture's dictum that if "the devil is fighting U.S. imperialism, than the devil is my comrade in arms!"  We see the millions of Africans who are in one place, just waiting to be organized.  I talked to hundreds of Africans from all over the world during the MMM 2015 about our struggle for liberation.  When these critics can create that level of environment for organizing, I'll stop and listen to them.  Until that time, while those critics would struggle to organize passing gas effectively, pardon us if we go where our people are so we can talk to them.  Those people clearly don't see the problem of leaving a paramilitary organization political education free.  The NOI isn't going anywhere. The history of internecine violence within organizations like the NOI in the 60s/70s and the US Organization in the 60s/70s are clear examples of what happens when they are isolated, as these critics are suggesting, without political education.  That's why Kwame Ture was correct when he refused to be baited into engaging in open ideological warfare with people like Omali Yeshitela (African Peoples' Socialist Party) who never tired of attacking Kwame when he was alive and after his death.  I spent enough time with Kwame to know that he was very aware of their attacks against him and no one would doubt his capacity to mount a very successful response if he had wanted to do so.  The reason he didn't is because he understood that our job as revolutionaries is to create revolutionaries and nothing about that task is ever going to be easy.  He constantly preached that our job is to never do our enemy's work for them.  We won't publicly get into arguments against other African organizations that our enemy's can manipulate as they did in the 60s/70s.  We are the political offspring of Kwame Ture so we certainly adhere to the same approach today.  We are determined to organize everyone, including the police, to work for the African revolution!  And, part of that work is clarifying confusion among our people and humanity so that we can refuel and continue to march forward!